 To clean or not to clean: Malware removal strategies for servers under loadSherwin Doroudi, Thanassis Avgerinos and Mor Harchol-Balter European Journal of Operational Research, 2021, vol. 292, issue 2, 596-609 Abstract: We consider how to best schedule reparative downtime for a customer-facing online service that is vulnerable to cyber attacks such as malware infections. These infections can cause performance degradation (i.e., a slower service rate) and facilitate data theft, both of which have monetary repercussions. Infections may go undetected and can only be removed by time-consuming cleanup procedures, which require temporarily taking the service offline. From a security-oriented perspective, cleanups should be undertaken as frequently as possible. From a performance-oriented perspective, frequent cleanups are desirable because they maintain faster service, but they are simultaneously undesirable because they lead to more frequent downtimes and subsequent loss of revenue. We ask when and how often cleanups should happen. Keywords: Markov processes; Queueing; Computer security; Malware; Maintenance (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:292:y:2021:i:2:p:596-609 DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2020.10.036 Access Statistics for this article European Journal of Operational Research is currently edited by Roman Slowinski, Jesus Artalejo, Jean-Charles. Billaut, Robert Dyson and Lorenzo Peccati More articles in European Journal of Operational Research from Elsevier |
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