Protecting infrastructure networks from cost-based attacks

TL;DR

This paper investigates optimal resource allocation strategies to defend complex networks against cost-based attacks, demonstrating that tailored defense distributions can significantly enhance network resilience.

Contribution

It introduces a method to determine optimal defense resource distribution considering attack costs, revealing dependence on network size, density, and heterogeneity.

Findings

Optimal defense distribution exists for complex networks.

Larger, sparser, and more heterogeneous networks benefit more from defense optimization.

Proper resource allocation minimizes damage from cost-based attacks.

Abstract

It has been known that heterogeneous networks are vulnerable to the intentional removal of a small fraction of highly connected or loaded nodes, which implies that, to protect a network effectively, a few important nodes should be allocated with more defense resources than the others. However, if too many resources are allocated to the few important nodes, the numerous less-important nodes will be less protected, which, when attacked all together, still capable of causing a devastating damage. A natural question therefore is how to efficiently distribute the limited defense resources among the network nodes such that the network damage is minimized whatever attack strategy the attacker may take. In this paper, taking into account the factor of attack cost, we will revisit the problem of network security and search for efficient network defense against the cost-based attacks. The study shows that, for a general complex network, there will exist an optimal distribution of the defense resources, with which the network is well protected from cost-based attacks. Furthermore, it is found that the configuration of the optimal defense is dependent on the network parameters. Specifically, network that has a larger size, sparser connection and more heterogeneous structure will be more benefited from the defense optimization.