•Scale-free networks are resistant to random node failures. As in, random node failures CANNOT destroy a scale-free network. •Shlomo Havlin, Reuven Choen, Keren Erez, and Daniel ben-Abraham showed that to kill a scale-free network, it must have a power law exponent of less than 3. •All significant scale-free networks found thus far have better than 3 for the exponent, and are therefore practically indestructible.