NIS03-2: Optical Network Security: Sensing Eavesdropper Intervention

Optical communication networks transport an enormous aggregate client traffic, a good part of which is highly sensitive. As such, the optical signal in the fiber medium becomes attractive to bad actors in an attempt to tap the fiber or a component on the path in order to eavesdrop, source mimic, or attack to cause service denial. Therefore, it is important that the network has built-in security features to monitor the channel integrity and to also detect if and when unauthorized intervention has taken place. It is also important that the network is intelligent to countermeasure bad actors. Because the integrity of optical channels in are also affected by component degradation, photon-matter interactions and other non-linear phenomena, the network should be able to differentiate between malicious interventions and parametric degradations. In this paper we identify observable performance parameters and predictors, we describe a estimating method for in-line parameter monitoring, we conclusively distinguish between component degradations and intervention of a malicious eavesdropper and we describe countermeasure mechanisms.