General Electric Company
System and method for protecting communication in time-sensitive networks using shared secret information

Abstract:

Systems and methods described herein measure quantum bit error rates in links between switches in a time-sensitive network, identify an increase in the quantum bit error rate in a monitored link of the links between the switches, and modify a configuration of the time-sensitive network so that secret information is not exchanged over the monitored link associated with the increase in the quantum bit error rate. The systems and methods optionally can direct computing devices to change or update the quantum key at a rate that is no slower than a rate at which the messages or frames are communicated between the computing devices. For example, a new portion of secret information used for secure communications can be created for each message and/or each frame that is communicated.