Comparison of failures and attacks on random and scale-free networks

Abstract

It appeared recently that some statistical properties of complex networks like the Internet, the World Wide Web or Peer-to-Peer systems have an important influence on their resilience to failures and attacks. In particular, scale-free networks (i.e. networks with power-law degree distribution) seem much more robust than random networks in case of failures, while they are more sensitive to attacks. In this paper we deepen the study of the differences in the behavior of these two kinds of networks when facing failures or attacks. We moderate the general affirmation that scale-free networks are much more sensitive than random networks to attacks by showing that the number of links to remove in both cases is similar, and by showing that a slightly modified scenario for failures gives results similar to the ones for attacks. We also propose and analyze an efficient attack strategy against links. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.