Analysis of Security Vulnerabilities and Countermeasures of Ethernet Passive Optical Network(EPON)

Ethernet-based Passive Optical Network(EPON) is considered a very promising solution for the first mile problem of the next generation networks.Due to its particular characteristic of shared media structure,EPON suffers many security vulnerabilities. Communication security must be guaranteed when EPON is applied in practice.This paper gives a general introduction to the EPON system,analyzes the potential threats and attacks pertaining to the EPON system,and presents effective countermea-sures against these threats and attacks with emphasis on the authentication protocols and key distribution.