Bi-objective vulnerability-reduction formulation for a network under diverse attacks

Resilience, described in this work as a function of vulnerability and recoverability dimensions, is an increasingly important concept in preparing for and responding to disruptions in many kinds of cyber-physical-social systems, including networks. This paper focuses on the vulnerability dimension of resilience, proposing (1) a bi-objective optimization formulation to devise defense strategies across a range of diverse attack scenarios, and (2) a three-step solution approach of approximating Pareto-optimal defense strategies for each attack scenario and aggregating characteristics of strategies across attacks to identify a robust defense strategy. An example network illustrates the formulation and solution approach, identifying contributions to enhance network resilience analytics.