Fibre Optic Eavesdropping Tap Alarm

Allied Telesis, announced that it has released an innovative security measure to prevent eavesdropping on fibre communications, 

Active Fiber Monitoring. The patent-pending 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 extensively for long-range data communications and are also a popular choice within the LAN environment. One of the perceived advantages of fiber is that eavesdropping on traffic within the cable is not possible. However, it is now possible to acquire devices that can snoop traffic on fiber cables; and even more disturbing is that these devices are readily available and very easy to use.

Active Fiber Monitoring, a technology that detects small changes in the amount of light received on a fibre link. When an intrusion is attempted, the light level changes because some of the light is redirected by the eavesdropper onto another fibre. As soon as this happens, Active Fiber Monitoring detects the intrusion and raises the alarm. The link can either be shut down automatically, or an operator can be alerted and manually intervene. more