Network-wide localization of optical-layer attacks
Paper in proceeding, 2020

Optical networks are vulnerable to a range of attacks targeting service disruption at the physical layer, such as the insertion of harmful signals that can propagate through the network and affect co-propagating channels. Detection of such attacks and localization of their source, a prerequisite for secure
network operation, is a challenging task due to the limitations in optical performance monitoring, as well as the scalability and cost issues. In this paper, we propose an approach for localizing the source of a jamming attack by modeling the worst-case scope of each connection as a potential carrier of a harmful signal. We define binary words called attack syndromes to model the health of each connection at the receiver which, when unique, unambiguously identify the harmful connection. To ensure attack syndrome uniqueness, we propose an optimization approach to design attack monitoring trails such that their number and length is minimal. This allows us to use the optical network as a sensor for physical-layer attacks. Numerical simulation results indicate that our approach obtains network-wide attack source localization at only 5.8% average resource overhead for the attack
monitoring trails.

optical network security

physical-layer attack detection

attack monitoring trails

Author

Vincent Chan

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Marija Furdek Prekratic

Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Communication, Antennas and Optical Networks

Carlos Natalino Da Silva

Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Communication, Antennas and Optical Networks

Lena Wosinska

Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Communication, Antennas and Optical Networks

Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)

03029743 (ISSN) 16113349 (eISSN)

Vol. 11616 LNCS 310-322 1570530976
978-303038084-7 (ISBN)

23rd Conference on Optical Network Design and Modeling, ONDM 2019
Athens, Greece,

Subject Categories

Computer Engineering

Telecommunications

Communication Systems

Areas of Advance

Information and Communication Technology

DOI

10.1007/978-3-030-38085-4_27

More information

Latest update

4/13/2023