New attack strategies for complex networks

•We propose two new attack strategies based on both degree and betweenness.•The proposed strategies are more efficient than the traditional ones (ID and RD).•The WS small-world network behaves more sensitive to the proposed strategies.•The attack efficiency of RDB and IDB strategy is improved by 20% and 40%.

The invulnerability of complex networks is an important issue in that the behavior of scale-free network differs from that of exponential network. According to the structural characteristics of the networks, we propose two new attack strategies named IDB (initial degree and betweenness) and RDB (recalculated degree and betweenness). The strategies are originated from ID (initial degree distribution) and RD (recalculated degree distribution) strategies in which attacks are based on initial structural information of a network. The probability of node removals depends on a new metric combining degree centrality and betweenness centrality. We evaluate the efficiency of the proposed strategies on one real-world network and three network models. Experimental results indicate that the proposed strategies are more efficient than the traditional ID and RD strategies. Specially, the WS small-world network behaves more sensitive to the proposed strategies. The attack efficiency of RDB strategy is improved by 20% to RD strategy, and IDB strategy is improved by 40% to ID strategy.