Vulnerability Mitigation of Multiple Spatially Localized Attacks on Critical Infrastructure Systems

Abstract

Recently, many studies have analyzed critical infrastructure vulnerability under spatially localized attack (SLA), which is modeled as the failure of a set of infrastructure components, distributed in a spatially localized area, due to malicious attacks, while other components outside of the area do not directly fail. However, existing studies have only considered one single attack area, and multiple SLAs (MSLAs) with more than one attack area have been seldom investigated. This article addresses this issue and studies vulnerability mitigation of critical infrastructure systems (CISs) against the worst‐case MSLAs. The problem is mathematically formulated as a tri‐level defender‐attacker‐defender model, the exact solution of which is solved by a proposed decomposition algorithm. Case studies on the adapted IEEE 24 bus system and the power transmission systems in Shelby County and Harris County, U.S., indicate that (1) system vulnerability under 2*M localized attack areas might be much larger than two times of the vulnerability under M localized attack areas; (2) small preevent defense investment might mitigate the worst‐case vulnerability by more than 40%; and (3) MSLAs might cause larger vulnerability than nonproximity‐based malicious attacks.

Vulnerability studies in the fields of transportation and complex networks: a citation network analysis

“…Ouyang and Fang (2017) present a framework to optimize resilience of infrastructure systems against intentional attacks. The sink papers of this stream are related to community resilience in consideration of infrastructure, social, and economical aspects (Mahmoud and Chulahwat 2018) and vulnerability to multiple spatially localized attacks on critical infrastructures (Ouyang et al 2018).…”

Resilience-oriented optimization of the transportation network under operational and extreme event conditions

“…These efforts have focused on a total life cycle analysis of bridges under deterioration mechanisms (Alipour et al, 2010;Alipour et al, 2013;Almeida et al, 2017;Frangopol and Liu, 2007a;Kim et al, 2016;Liu and Frangopol, 2005b;Shafei et al, 2013); the selection of maintenance actions for an individual bridge (Daneshkhah et al, 2017;Liu, 2006, 2007b;Furuta and Kameda, 2007;García-Nieves et al, 2018;Liu and Frangopol, 2005a); or optimization of maintenance actions, such as approaches for optimizing work zones, construction scheduling, and relative actions Jiang and Adeli, 2003;Taillandier et al, 2017). Moreover, due to the growing possibility of multiple transportation assets failing simultaneously (such as due to regional natural hazards), recent research has investigated the integration of infrastructure failure potential into DSSs Ouyang and Fang, 2017;Ouyang et al, 2018;Sousa et al, 2017;Kosgodagan-Dalla Torre et al, 2017).…”