Resistance maximization principle for defending networks against virus attack

Angsheng Li, Xiaohui Zhang, Yicheng Pan

Abstract:

We investigate the defending of networks against virus attack. We define the resistance of a network to be the maximum number of bits required to determine the code of the module that is accessible from random walk, from which random walk cannot escape.We show that
for any network G, R(G) = H1(G) − H2(G), where R(G) is the resistance of G, H1(G) and H2(G) are the one- and two-dimensional structural information of G, respectively, and that resistance maximization is the principle for defending networks against virus attack. By using the theory, we investigate the defending of real world networks and of the networks generated by the preferential attachment and the security models. We show that there exist networks that are defensible by a small number of controllers from cascading failure of any virus attack. Our theory demonstrates that resistance maximization is the principle for defending networks against virus attacks.