Reports from Alcatel Lucent Advance Knowledge in Technology.(Report)

"Optical cross-connect systems with several terabits of switching capacity are critical components of today's communication networks. Because of their central role within the telecommunication infrastructure, along with their remote management capabilities, high-capacity network nodes are potential targets of attacks," scientists writing in the Bell Labs Technical Journal report.

"Built upon proprietary hardware and software components in the past, such systems increasingly make use of standard technology today The Linux operating system has become a widely-used standard for embedded communication controllers, and similarly the Internet Protocol is widely used for both internal and external data exchange. In this paper, we establish a threat model for transmission network nodes employing these open source technologies. Based upon functional models of such systems, we then introduce security requirements for functional components and their communication with respect to that threat model, thereby forming a security architecture for transmission systems," wrote S. Hofmann and colleagues, Alcatel Lucent.

The researchers concluded: "We further propose security zones to strictly segregate sensitive internal communication from external traffic."

Hofmann and colleagues published their study in Bell Labs Technical Journal (Towards a Security Architecture for IP-Based Optical Transmission Systems. Bell Labs Technical Journal, 2011;16(1):133-153).

Additional information can be obtained by contacting S. Hofmann, Alcatel Lucent, Software Development Department, Optical Division, Nurnberg, GERMANY.

The publisher of the Bell Labs Technical Journal can be contacted at: Wiley Periodicals, Inc., Commerce Place, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-529, USA.

Keywords: City:Nurnberg, Country:Germany, Region:Europe, Communication Network, Communications, High-capacity Network, Networks, Software, Technology, Telecommunications

This article was prepared by Telecommunications Weekly editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2011, Telecommunications Weekly via VerticalNews.com.