Abstract
Many real world complex systems such as critical infrastructure networks are embedded in space and their components may depend on one another to function. They are also susceptible to geographically localized damage caused by malicious attacks or natural disasters. Here, we study a general model of spatially embedded networks with dependencies under localized attacks. We develop a theoretical and numerical approach to describe and predict the effects of localized attacks on spatially embedded systems with dependencies. Surprisingly, we find that a localized attack can cause substantially more damage than an equivalent random attack. Furthermore, we find that for a broad range of parameters, systems which appear stable are in fact metastable. Though robust to random failures - even of finite fraction - if subjected to a localized attack larger than a critical size which is independent of the system size (i.e., a zero fraction), a cascading failure emerges which leads to complete system collapse. Our results demonstrate the potential high risk of localized attacks on spatially embedded network systems with dependencies and may be useful for designing more resilient systems.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 8934 |
Journal | Scientific Reports |
Volume | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 11 Mar 2015 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2015, Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.
Funding
We acknowledge the LINC (no. 289447 funded by the EC’s Marie-Curie ITN program (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-ITN)) and MULTIPLEX (EU-FET project 317532) projects, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), the Israel Science Foundation, ONR and DTRA for financial support. Daqing Li acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61104144) and National Basic Research Program of China (2012CB725404).
Funders | Funder number |
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EC’s Marie-Curie | FP7-PEOPLE-2011-ITN |
EU-FET | |
MULTIPLEX | |
Office of Naval Research | |
Defense Threat Reduction Agency | |
Seventh Framework Programme | 289447, 317532 |
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft | |
National Natural Science Foundation of China | 61104144 |
Israel Science Foundation | |
National Key Research and Development Program of China | 2012CB725404 |