Lightweight centrality measures in networks under attack

Abstract

In this paper we study deliberate attacks on the infrastructure of large scale-free networks. These attacks are based on the importance of individual vertices in the network in order to be successful, and the concept of centrality (originating from social science) has already been utilized in their study with success. Some measures of centrality however, as betweenness, have disadvantages that do not facilitate the research in this area. We show that with the aid of scale-free network characteristics such as the clustering coefficient we can get results that balance the current centrality measures, but also gain insight into the workings of these networks. Copyright © 2006 S. Karger AG.