Tecordia to Address ROADM Security Holes

Light Reading has published and article that describes a technique that can be used for encrypting 100 Gbps optical streams. Telcordia is planning to bring optical layer security to market that uses optical phase shifts for its encryption keys and promises the possibility of 100-Gbps security. The technology, called Photonic Layer Security (PLS).

Telcordia stated that the rise of ROADMs has created a security hole in the network. It is possible to intercept traffic at that add/drop point. It's also possible to insert spoofed traffic there. PLS gets around this because the recipient must have the proper key, otherwise the optical signal cannot be unscrambled.

This is an example of the security problems that the new technologies will bring with them. Paying attention to these issues will an important part of deploying these new technologies.