Minimization of vulnerability for a network under diverse attacks

This paper describes an approach to minimize the vulnerability of a network under a defender attacker context. To do so, vulnerability is defined in the context of a resilience-building framework and corresponding mathematical formulations are provided. The solution to network optimization model is based on a three-phased approach consisting on identifying Pareto optimal defense strategies with respect to cost and vulnerability for a known set of network attacks. These solutions are then utilized to identify the network defense strategy that can offer the best protection against any of the attacks. Examples are used to illustrate the approach.