System and method for establishing secure communications between transceivers in undersea optical communication systems

An apparatus comprising:

• an optical transmitter configured to format outbound data traffic as a plurality of frames, to include a secure passcode in overhead of at least one of the frames, and to transmit at least an optical signal including the outbound data traffic formatted as the plurality of frames;
• and
• an optical receiver configured to receive an inbound optical signal, the inbound optical signal including inbound data traffic formatted as a plurality of frames, wherein overhead of at least one of the frames includes a secure passcode, and configured to determine if the optical receiver is provisioned to receive the inbound data traffic including the secure passcode, and if the optical receiver is provisioned to receive the inbound data traffic including the secure passcode, to read the inbound data traffic and continue transmitting the outbound optical signal including the outbound data traffic, and if the optical receiver is not provisioned to receive the inbound data traffic including the secure passcode, to prevent the inbound data traffic from being read from the optical receiver at least temporarily and to provisionally insert an alternative maintenance signal into the transmitted optical signal instead of the outbound data traffic.

A method of establishing secure communications between optical transceivers in an undersea optical communication system, the method comprising:

• provisioning at least first and second optical transceivers with matching passcodes, wherein each of the first and second optical transceivers is configured to format data traffic as a plurality of frames, to include a secure version of the passcode in overhead of at least one of the frames, and to transmit at least an optical signal including the data traffic formatted as the plurality of frames, and wherein each of the first and second optical transceivers is configured to receive optical signals and to determine if the respective transceiver is provisioned to receive inbound data traffic including a secure passcode in data frames in the received optical signals, and if the respective transceiver is provisioned to receive the inbound data traffic including the secure passcode, to read the inbound data traffic and if the respective transceiver is not provisioned to receive the inbound data traffic including the secure passcode, to prevent the inbound data traffic from being read at least temporarily and to insert an alternative maintenance signal in the optical signal being transmitted;
• and
• deploying the first and second optical transceivers in the undersea optical communications system.