The invention provides a system and method for secure communication that involve encoding and transmitting an optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) signal. Each subcarrier of an optical carrier in OFDM transmission is modulated with data individually, and a variety of data format are used, such as QPSK, OOK, QAM, etc. The data format of each subcarrier may change in time according to a predetermined pattern. An optical receiver uncovers the data transmitted via an optical link. It is based on a coherent optical receiver and a digital signal processing (DSP) unit. A key to the data mapping and change is transmitted via the same optical link or by a separate channel. In one embodiment, the key is transmitted using quantum encryption technique. Besides subcarrier modulation encoding, the system may provide additional layers of security: optical carrier frequency hopping and polarization scrambling.