Bottleneck Attack Strategies on Complex Communication Networks

Abstract

Many real-world systems can be represented by a network, in which nodes denote the objects and edges imply the relations between them, such as Internet and wireless sensor networks. The robustness of these systems can be investigated through studying the attack vulnerability of corresponding network topologies. In this work, we propose a new set of network attack strategies — bottleneck-based attacks. We compare these attacks with classical hub and betweenness attacks on general scale-free networks, modular scale-free networks and real Internet traffic networks. Simulation results indicate that hub-bottlenecks, rather than hub-nonbottlenecks, are most important in all networks, and bottleneck nodes represent the fragility of modular scale-free networks. Our study provides meaningful insights into protection of real systems.