A Local Mean Field Analysis of Security Investments in Networks

Getting agents in the Internet, and in networks in general, to invest in and deploy security features and protocols is a challenge, in particular because of economic reasons arising from the presence of network externalities. Our goal in this paper is to model and investigate the impact of such externalities on security investments in a network. Specifically, we study a network of interconnected agents subject to epidemic risks such as viruses and worms where agents can decide whether or not to invest some amount to deploy security solutions. We consider both cases when the security solutions are strong (they perfectly protect the agents deploying them) and when they are weak. We make three contributions in the paper. First, we introduce a general model which combines an epidemic propagation model with an economic model for agents which captures network effects and externalities. Second, borrowing ideas and techniques used in statistical physics, we introduce a Local Mean Field (LMF) ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: CORR
• Authors: Marc Lelarge, Jean Bolot
• Keywords: CORR 2008, Education, Externalities, Model, Security