March 11, 2002—Tyco Electronics announced that sales of its MT-RJ Secure jack connector have exceeded 50,000 since its commercial introduction in January 2001. The MT-RJ Secure connector and cable assemblies or connector cable assemblies are components to Tyco Electronics’ MT-RJ Secure Optical Fiber Cabling System product line. According to Tyco, demand for additional measures of physical security for military installations, government facilities, financial institutions and enterprise data centers and storage area networks running highly sensitive or classified data is fueling early adoption of the MT-RJ Secure connector.
To limit user access to specific networks and physically segregate network segments, the MT-RJ Secure connector takes advantage of molded slots on the plug and molded keys on the latching jack to reduce the chance of accessing the wrong network. The plugs and jacks are keyed in four different color-coded versions to assist network administrators in identifying the designated plug intended for an authorized workstation jack. When mating the plug and jack, the colors must match. Otherwise, the keying will prevent them from coupling and carrying the data transmission signal.
“Firewalls and virtual private networks (VPNs) are important, useful security tools, but more breaches of network security come from within the organization than from without,” says Herb Congdon, global fiber product manager with Tyco Electronics. “This suggests that deterring internal threats is at least as important as guarding the network perimeter. One strategy often employed to bolster internal security is to create several entirely separate communications cabling plants—one carrying the most sensitive traffic, while one or more lower-security networks carry less-sensitive traffic.” For more information, contact Tyco Electronics.
