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Published Online April 2, 2009
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1167053

Reports

Submitted on October 10, 2008
Accepted on March 24, 2009

Understanding the Spreading Patterns of Mobile Phone Viruses

Pu Wang 1, Marta C. González 2, César A. Hidalgo 3, Albert-László Barabási 4*

1 Center for Complex Network Research, Department of Physics, Biology and Computer Science, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115.; Center for Complex Network Research and Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556.
2 Center for Complex Network Research, Department of Physics, Biology and Computer Science, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115.
3 Center for Complex Network Research, Department of Physics, Biology and Computer Science, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115.; Center for Complex Network Research and Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556.; Center for International Development, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02139.
4 Center for Complex Network Research, Department of Physics, Biology and Computer Science, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115.; Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Center for Cancer Systems Biology, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Albert-László Barabási , E-mail: barabasi{at}gmail.com

We model the mobility of mobile phone users to study the fundamental spreading patterns characterizing a mobile virus outbreak. We find that while Bluetooth viruses can reach all susceptible handsets with time, they spread slowly due to human mobility, offering ample opportunities to deploy antiviral software. In contrast, viruses utilizing multimedia messaging services could infect all users in hours, but currently a phase transition on the underlying call graph limits them to only a small fraction of the susceptible users. These results explain the lack of a major mobile virus breakout so far and predict that once a mobile operating system’s market share reaches the phase transition point, viruses will pose a serious threat to mobile communications.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
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S. Havlin (2009)
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)