While going to school of telecom one of my favorite topics was fiber optics. The sheer amount of work that goes into putting on a connector it is just simply amazing and fun to do. One of the things I loved about fiber was that it was the one cable that was nearly impossible to intercept without someone clearly knowing something went wrong.
Now I see that that you can attack fiber quite easily with the right hardware. To do so all you need to do is bend the cable enough to get the light to escape. Then you are able to put the cable into a device and read the signal. At this point you will not be able to transmit, but the point of most man in the middle attacks is to grab the data without anyone noticing.
Image From: Sandra Kay Miller, Information Security Magazine
I see a few problems with this kind of attack, first as with any fiber project it is not cheap. It will be at least $1000 to do this kind of attack. While that does not hinder the fact that this type of attack is still there, it just limits the number of people who can do so. The price will come down and therefore the attack will become easier.
Another issue I see with this kind of attack is the loss of signal strength. While working with fiber if you bend the cable too much you run the risk of having someone notice that the signal strength has decreased and possibly the cable may no longer transmit any data. I am sure that any device that is created for this purpose has already thought through these same issues.
I am not trying to downplay this type of attack, I am just skeptical. I do not see this kind of attack being all that successful today. I would still put some sort of attenuation monitor on any long distance fiber runs, but I would have done that in the past as well. That is just part of maintaining a solid network.
