System and method for transport overhead and header field cybersecurity

A system, comprising:

• a processor;
• a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising programming instructions that are configured to cause the processor to implement a method for improving network element security, wherein the programming instructions comprise instructions to:
• obtain a transport frame;
• analyze the transport frame to determine whether or not any reserved overhead field values in at least one of a header of a mapping layer frame and a header of a transport layer frame have values other than expected values;
• obtain a policy or rule for processing the transport frame in response to a determination that at least one vulnerable overhead field value of the vulnerable overhead field values has a value other than the expected value;
• modify at least one reserved target field value in the transport frame when a determination is made that the at least one reserved overhead field value has a value other than the expected value;
• and
• communicate the transport frame with the modified at least one reserved target value over a network or to a mapping layer formatting circuit;
• wherein the policy or rule requires that the network element ignore that a given vulnerable overhead field value of the vulnerable overhead field values has a value other than the expected value, and communicate the transport frame over a network when all other ones of the vulnerable overhead field values have the expected values.