An Effective Network Repair Strategy Against Both Random and Malicious Edge Attacks

Attack vulnerability and protection of large-scale complex networks are of great significance in academic and engineering communities. In this study, the problem of structural vulnerability of complex networks induced by attacks on edges is addressed. In order to restore network’s performance after attacks, a simple two-stage attack-recovery model based on activating backup edges is presented. Moreover, with the consideration of two different edge attack strategies, the joint influence of repair cost (i.e. the extent of edge redundancy) and repair targets are extensively investigated. Numerical simulations are implemented on artificially generated random networks and real-world networks, which demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed repair model. The research results can provide some useful suggestion on constructing robust infrastructure systems, also help to better understand the structural complexity of large-scale networks.