Simulation and visualization of malware spread in a cloud-based collaboration environment

Abstract

The technology disclosed simulates and analyzes spread of malware through an organization as a result of sharing files using cloud-based services. This analysis is based on actual user and file sharing characteristics collected on a user-by-user and file-by-file basis. The technology disclosed traces connections among the users by traversing a directed graph constructed from the user-by-user data and the file-by-file data. It then simulates the spread of malware, from an entry point user zero through the organization, via the cloud-based services, using the directed graph to simulate user exposure to, infection by, and transmission of the malware within the organization. It then produces a visualization of the spread from the entry point user zero, to users within a user partition to which the user zero belongs, at varying transmission distances from the user zero.