Evaluating the damage associated with intentional network disintegration

This paper presents a method for evaluating an expected damage associated with disintegrating complex networks with a given topology into isolated sub-networks (clusters) as a result of intentional attack on randomly chosen network links. The method is based on a multi-dimensional spectra approach for evaluating the probability of network disintegration into a given number of sub-networks when a fixed number of randomly chosen links is eliminated. It also uses the contest success function that evaluates destruction probability of individual links as a function of per-link attack and defense efforts. It is assumed that the defender has no information about the attackerʹs actions and the attacker has no information about the network structure. The method allows the analysts to compare different network topologies and to choose one with the minimal expected damage under conditions of uncertainty. Illustrative examples are presented.