In recent years, both sophistication and damage potential of Internet worms have increased tremendously. To understand their threat, we need to look into their payload for signatures as well as propagation pattern for Internet-scale behavior. An accurate analytical propagation model allows us to comprehensively study how a worm propagates under various conditions, which is often computationally too intensive for simulations. More importantly, it gives us an insight into the impact of each worm/ network parameter on the propagation of the worm.

-In recent years, both sophistication and damage potential of Internet worms have increased tremendously. To understand their threat, we need to look into their payload for signatures as well as propagation pattern for Internet-scale behavior. An accurate analytical propagation model allows us to　 comprehensively study how a worm propagates under various conditions, which is often computationally too intensive for simulations. More importantly, it gives us an insight into the impact of each worm/ network parameter on the propagation of the worm.