Attack vulnerability of self-organizing networks

There are several self-organizing networks in the real world, and these networks severely affect the development of the modern society. This paper investigates the vulnerability of self-organizing networks subject to malicious attacks according to a new framework. Assuming the initial load of node i as L-i = alpha k(i) + (1 - alpha)Sigma(j is an element of Gamma i)k(j) with k(i) and Gamma(i) being the degree and the set of neighbor nodes of the node i, where a is a tunable parameter and control the strength of the initial loads of nodes. The node with the maximum degree is considered as the attacked node, and with the changes of the parameter alpha, cascading failures will be investigated in this paper. Local redistribution rule has been adopted to study the cascading breakdowns of the US power grid and IEEE-118 networks. Additionally, the capacity of the node i is defined as C-i = (1 + beta)L-i, the critical threshold beta(c) of the US power grid and IEEE-118 networks will be obtained from the evolutional process of cascading failures. Finally, an optimal design of US power grid network is given in this paper. Crown Copyright (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.