Abstract The field of optical transmission has undergone numerous advancements and is still being researched mainly due to the fact that optical data transmission can be done at enormous speeds. It is quite evident that people prefer optical communication when it comes to large amount of data involving its transmission. The concept of switching in networks has matured enormously with several researches, architecture to implement and methods starting with Optical circuit switching to Optical Burst Switching. Optical burst switching is regarded as viable solution for switching bursts over networks but has several security vulnerabilities. However, this work exploited the security issues associated with Optical Burst Switching with respect to integrity of burst. This proposed Quantum Key based Secure Hash Algorithm (QKBSHA-512) with enhanced compression function design provides better avalanche effect over the conventional integrity algorithms.
Abstract The field of optical transmission has undergone numerous advancements and is still being researched mainly due to the fact that optical data transmission can be done at enormous speeds. It is quite evident that people prefer optical communication when it comes to large amount of data involving its transmission. The concept of switching in networks has matured enormously with several researches, architecture to implement and methods starting with Optical circuit switching to Optical Burst Switching. Optical burst switching is regarded as viable solution for switching bursts over networks but has several security vulnerabilities. However, this work exploited the security issues associated with Optical Burst Switching with respect to integrity of burst. This proposed Quantum Key based Secure Hash Algorithm (QKBSHA-512) with enhanced compression function design provides better avalanche effect over the conventional integrity algorithms.
The Optical Burst Switching (OBS) is an emergent result to the technology issue that could achieve a viable network in future. They have the ability to meet the bandwidth requisite of those applications that call for intensive bandwidth. The field of optical transmission has undergone numerous advancements and is still being researched mainly due to the fact that optical data transmission can be done at enormous speeds. The concept of OBS is still far from perfection facing issues in case of security threat. The transfer of optical switching paradigm to optical burst switching faces serious downfall in the fields of burst aggregation, routing, authentication, dispute resolution and quality of service (QoS). This paper proposes a framework based on QKD based secure edge router architecture design to provide burst confidentiality. The QKD protocol offers high level of confidentiality as it is indestructible. The design architecture was implemented in FPGA using diverse models and the results were taken. The results show that the proposed model is suitable for real time secure routing applications of the Optical burst switched networks.
The optical burst switching (OBS) is an emergent result to the technology concern that could achieve a feasible network in future. They are endowed with the ability to meet the bandwidth requirement of those applications that require intensive bandwidth. There are more domains opening up in the OBS that evidently shows their advantages and their capability to face the future network traffic. However, the concept of OBS is still far from perfection facing issues in case of security threat. The transfer of optical switching paradigm to optical burst switching faces serious downfall in the fields of burst aggregation, routing, authentication, dispute resolution, and quality of service (QoS). This paper deals with employing RC4 (stream cipher) to encrypt and decrypt bursts thereby ensuring the confidentiality of the burst. Although the use of AES algorithm has already been proposed for the same issue, by contrasting the two algorithms under the parameters of burst encryption and decryption time, end-to-end delay, it was found that RC4 provided better results. This paper looks to provide a better solution for the confidentiality of the burst in OBS networks.
The increasing reliance on optical communication networks for high-speed data transmission has amplified concerns regarding secure information exchange in the era of quantum computing. Classical cryptographic protocols such as RSA and ECC, though widely deployed, are vulnerable to attacks from large-scale quantum computers executing Shor’s algorithm. Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) has emerged as a revolutionary cryptographic paradigm that leverages the principles of quantum mechanics to enable theoretically unbreakable key exchange. This paper investigates the integration of QKD into optical communication networks, focusing on protocol design, implementation challenges, and potential scalability. Through scenario-based evaluation, the study highlights the trade-offs between quantum security and practical deployment constraints such as channel loss, photon detector efficiency, and key generation rates. Results from simulated models demonstrate that while QKD can achieve provable security in metropolitan-area networks, long-distance transmission requires advanced techniques such as quantum repeaters and trusted nodes. This work concludes that QKD offers a promising pathway toward quantum-safe communication but necessitates
The increasing reliance on optical communication networks for high-speed data transmission has amplified concerns regarding secure information exchange in the era of quantum computing. Classical cryptographic protocols such as RSA and ECC, though widely deployed, are vulnerable to attacks from large-scale quantum computers executing Shor�s algorithm. Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) has emerged as a revolutionary cryptographic paradigm that leverages the principles of quantum mechanics to enable theoretically unbreakable key exchange. This paper investigates the integration of QKD into optical communication networks, focusing on protocol design, implementation challenges, and potential scalability. Through scenario-based evaluation, the study highlights the trade-offs between quantum security and practical deployment constraints such as channel loss, photon detector efficiency, and key generation rates. Results from simulated models demonstrate that while QKD can achieve provable security in metropolitan-area networks, long-distance transmission requires advanced techniques such as quantum repeaters and trusted nodes. This work concludes that QKD offers a promising pathway toward quantum-safe communication but necessitates advancements in hardware, standardization, and hybrid cryptographic strategies for widespread adoption.
Optical network security is attracting increasing research interest. Currently, software defined optical network (SDON) has been proposed to increase network intelligence, which is gradually moving towards industrialization. However, new threats are emerging, e.g., control messages transferred via the control channels are vulnerable to eavesdropping and interception. Data encryption is an effective way to enhance the security of connection as well as control messages transferred in SDON. Noticeably, quantum key distribution (QKD) is being considered as a secure mechanism to provision keys for confidential data encryption, which is a potential technique to protect communications from security attacks in SDONs. How to utilize QKD to enhance the SDON security is emerging as a new issue. This paper proposes a novel QKD-enabled SDON architecture, and discusses some open issues and challenges such as resource allocation, security level, trusted repeater node placement and resiliency under such an architecture. Moreover, this paper also proposes an algorithmic solution to resource allocation issue and describes some illustrative simulation results.
Encrypted data transmission is becoming increasingly more important as information security is vital to modern communication networks. Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) is a promising method based on the quantum properties of light to generate and distribute unconditionally secure keys for use in classical data encryption. Significant progress has been achieved in the performance of QKD point-to-point transmission over a fibre link between two users. The transmission distance has exceeded several hundred kilometres of optical fibre in recent years, and the secure bit rate achievable has reached megabits per second, making QKD applicable for metro networks. To realize quantum encrypted data transmission over metro networks, quantum keys need to be regularly distributed and shared between multiple end users. Optical switching has been shown to be a promising technique for cost-effective QKD networking, enabling the dynamic reconfiguration of transmission paths with low insertion loss. In this thesis, the performance of optically switched multi-user QKD systems are studied using a mathematical model in terms of transmission distance and secure key rates. The crosstalk and loss limitations are first investigated theoretically and then experimentally. The experiment and simulation both show that negligible system penalties are observed with crosstalk of -20 dB or below. A practical quantum-safe metro network solution is then reported, integrating optically-switched QKD systems with high speed reconfigurability to protect classical network traffic. Quantum signals are routed by rapid optical switches between any two endpoints or network nodes via reconfigurable connections. Proof-of-concept experiments with commercial QKD systems are conducted. Secure keys are continuously shared between virtualised Alice-Bob pairs over effective transmission distances of 30 km, 31.7 km, 33.1 km and 44.6 km. The quantum bit error rates (QBER) for the four paths are proportional to the channel losses with values between 2.6% and 4.1%. Optimising the reconciliation and clock distribution architecture is predicted to result in an estimated maximum system reconfiguration time of 20 s, far shorter than previously demonstrated. In addition, Continuous Variable (CV) QKD has attracted much research interest in recent years, due to its compatibility with standard telecommunication techniques and relatively low cost in practical implementation. A wide band balanced homodyne detection system built from modified off-the-shelf components is experimentally demonstrated. Practical limits and benefits for high speed CVQKD key transmission are demonstrated based on an analysis of noise performance. The feasibility of an optically switched CV-QKD is also experimentally demonstrated using two virtualised Alice-Bob pairs for the first time. This work represents significant advances towards the deployment of CVQKD in a practical quantum-safe metro network. A method of using the classical equalization technique for Inter-symbol-interference mitigation in CVQKD detection is also presented and investigated. This will encourage further research to explore the applications of classical communication tools in quantum communications.