Evolution of network robustness under continuous topological changes

Abstract

Many networks in reality face a dynamic iteration of attacking and defending, in which attackers and defenders take turns to destroy and replenish networks. The framework of iterative attacking and defending has been introduced, and Kim and Anderson gave an iterative model with much finer granularity and empirically studied three attack/defense strategies on nodes. However, in real-world networks, the failure can also occur on links. We therefore extend the iterative attack/defense strategies to links and apply the robustness measure R and the link-robustness Rl to evaluate the performance of each attack/defense strategy. Through intensive experiments on several well-known networks, the defense strategy of connecting nodes with low-centrality is effective enough to maintain network connectivity and increase the network robustness R against targeted node attacks, but it cannot enhance the link-robustness Rl against malicious link attacks during the iterative rounds. Significantly, on two real-world networks, this strategy is perfect for simultaneously enhancing the robustness R and the link-robustness Rl.