Attacks and Cascades in Complex Networks

Abstract

Abstract. This paper reviews two problems in the security of complex networks: cascades of overload failures on nodes and range-based attacks on links. Cascading failures have been reported for numerous networks and refer to the subsequent failure of other parts of the network induced by the failure of or attacks on only a few nodes. We investigate a mechanism leading to cascades of overload failures in complex networks by constructing a simple model incorporating the flow of physical quantities in the network. The second problem is motivated by the fact that most existing works on security of complex networks consider attacks on nodes rather than on links. We address attacks on links. Our investigation leads to the finding that many scale-free networks are more sensitive to attacks on short-range than on long-range links. Besides its importance concerning network security, our result has the unexpected implication that the small-world phenomenon in these scale-free networks is mainly due to short-range links.

A complex network based model for detecting isolated communities in water distribution networks

“…Motter et al studied internet and power system networks and found out that there was a robust-but-fragile feature under cascade-based attacks. 17,18 Simultaneously, some complex network models were proposed to investigate the structural vulnerability of power grids, water distribution networks in city, logistic networks, etc. 9,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25] Generally, previous researches were focusing on the use of complex network theories to analyze the physical topologies and structural connection of networks, but most prior works mostly neglect the specific structural properties, interaction of network components governed by practical operation conditions and concrete engineering features.…”

Building Ensemble Classifier Based on Complex Network for Predicting Protein Structural Class

“…CN is well studied in many fields of sciences [7,8]. Undeniably, one can find that many systems in the world can be represented by models of CN such as the Internet, World Wide Web, brain, food webs and the network of relationships among people.…”

Self-Organized Terrorist-Counterterrorist Adaptive Coevolutions, Part 1: A Conceptual Design

“…Lai, Motter and Nishikawa [181]- [183] study the effects of attacking links (rather than nodes), observing that scale-free networks are generally more sensitive to attacks on short-range rather than on longrange links. Using "efficiency" (as defined by Latora and Marchiori [149] 48 ) as a measure of a network's function, Lai, et al find that shortrange attacks are much more destructive, on average, than longrange ones; at least for scale-free networks whose scaling exponent, γ, lies between about 3 and 5.…”