Allied Telesis Active Fiber Monitoring security solution

Allied Telesis has released Active Fiber Monitoring, an alternative security measure to encryption or sensitive light meters, which can prevent eavesdropping on fibre communications. The technology can detect when a cable is being tampered with and will raise an alarm to warn of a possible security breach.

Fibre-optic links are used for long-range data communications and within the LAN environment. One of the perceived advantages of fibre is that eavesdropping on traffic within the cable is not possible. However, devices which can eavesdrop on traffic on fibre cables undetected are now readily available and easy to use.

The monitoring technology to combat this threat detects small changes in the amount of light received on a fibre link. When an intrusion is attempted, the light level changes since some of the light is redirected by the eavesdropper onto another fibre. When this happens, the monitoring technology detects the intrusion and raises the alarm. The link can either be shut down automatically or an operator can be alerted and manually intervene.

Active Fiber Monitoring is built in to all Allied Telesis ‘x’ Series switches and firewalls running the latest AlliedWare Plus Operating System firmware. It requires the use of DDM-capable optical modules.