Network Throughput and Reliability: Preventing Hazards and Attacks Through Gaming—Part I: Modeling

By facilitating activity flows, infrastructure networks such as transportation, telecommunication and power grids are essential to the economy, quality-of-life and security of a society. However, as evidenced in recent historical events such as the collapse of the Minneapolis Highway Bridge and attacks on a country’s defense-information infrastructure, a network is only useful if it is reliable, secure, and functioning properly. In other words, it has to be devoid of unexpected failures due to natural/technological disasters and outside attacks. A stochastic network, characterized by arcs (links) and nodes that can fail unexpectedly, is proposed to mimic such unpredicted interruptions. Through such a stochastic-network model, we identify tactics to prevent disruptions caused by natural/technological hazards and hostile tampering. Strategically, we can also advance public-policy options by determining an appropriate budget needed not only to maintain our infrastructure, but also to guard against adversarial attacks. The latter are accomplished by imputing the value of network security scientifically based on the cost of disrupting economic and noneconomic transactions, rather than using traditional cost accounting.