Onion-like network topology enhances robustness against malicious attacks

Abstract

We develop a method to generate robust networks against malicious attacks, aswell as to substantially improve the robustness of a given network by swappingedges and keeping the degree distribution fixed. The method, based on persistenceof the size of the largest cluster during attacks, was applied to several types ofnetworks with broad degree distributions, including a real network—the Internet. Wefind that our method can improve the robustness significantly. Our results showthat robust networks have a novel ‘onion-like’ topology consisting of a core ofhighly connected nodes hierarchically surrounded by rings of nodes with decreasingdegree.