Attack vulnerability of scale-free networks due to cascading breakdown

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2004 Sep;70(3 Pt 2):035101. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.70.035101. Epub 2004 Sep 3.

Abstract

The possibility that a complex network can be brought down by attack on a single or a very few nodes through the process of cascading failures is of significant concern. Here we investigate a recent model for cascading failures in complex networks and uncover a phase-transition phenomenon in terms of the key parameter characterizing the node capacity. For parameter value below the phase-transition point, cascading failures can cause the network to disintegrate almost entirely. We obtain a theoretical estimate for the phase-transition point and provide numerical support.