Work

Cascade-aware secure multipath transmission in coupled communication networks: Residual node-disjoint routing and adaptive secret sharing

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Communication services that support critical infrastructures increasingly operate over coupled communication substrates in which backbone links, access/relay links, and higher-layer dependencies interact. These interdependencies can improve route diversity, but they can also transform local disruptions into cross-layer cascades that degrade both continuity of operation and secure transmission. This paper proposes a Robust Secure Multipath Transmission (RSMT) framework for critical-infrastructure communication under cascade-driven topology degradation. The framework combines a supra-graph model of coupled multi-layer communication networks, an improved Motter–Lai load-capacity cascade process, residual node-disjoint routing, and Shamir ( t , n ) threshold secret sharing with reliability-aware path-subset and threshold selection. Simulations on real backbone topologies from the Internet Topology Zoo, coupled with a public higher-layer interaction surrogate, show that gateway-coupling density and load tolerance jointly determine the viable operating region: moderate gateway-coupling density can support survivability when sufficient load tolerance is available, whereas excessive gateway-coupling density accelerates collapse. Within the residual region where multiple residual node-disjoint paths remain feasible, RSMT improves the joint probability of successful delivery without adversarial reconstruction over both single-path transmission and fixed-threshold SMT, with the largest gains appearing under higher interception risk. The results provide an operator-oriented view of when adaptive secure multipath transmission remains beneficial and when structural collapse becomes the dominant limiting factor. More broadly, they indicate that secure communication for critical infrastructures should be co-designed with robustness control rather than evaluated on a static routing substrate.

Source: International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijcip.2026.100884

Authors: Tianyu Wang, Dong Li, Daqi Jiang, Jianming Zhao, Bowen Zhang

Institutions: Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Robotics, Northeastern University

Language: English

Topic: Cybersecurity and Information Systems

Subfield: Computer Networks and Communications

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $2,490