An extensive vulnerability assessment and countermeasures in open network operating system software defined networking controller

Abstract

Software defined networking (SDN) is the technology that has changed the design and deployment architecture of networks with its benefits like centralization, application awareness, programmability and so forth. But security is one aspect, which needs to be continuously revised according to the new vulnerabilities or bugs found in the network.In this article, penetration testing or vulnerability assessment has been performed on ONOS SDN controller with both single and clustered controller environments. Penetration testing has been performed using DELTA framework, which is solely built for SDN. Apart from using DELTA, python scripting and some popular DDoS tools like Hping3, Nping and Xerxes, are used to perform DDoS (TCP SYN and HTTP) vulnerability assessment. A total of 13 known and unknown vulnerabilities were found with impact of six each listed in high, and medium, while one vulnerability has low-impact.The impact level is measured using common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) 3.1.Vulnerabilities have been found on the ONOS deployments with default parameters and results achieved can be used to strengthen the security of ONOS SDN controller.Our research puts major emphasis on finding both known and unknown vulnerabilities in ONOS SDN controller and their countermeasures to prevent or mitigate these vulnerabilities.

An efficient approach to detect distributed denial of service attacks for software defined internet of things combining autoencoder and extreme gradient boosting with feature selection and hyperparameter tuning optimization

“…Likewise, given the specific conceptualization of the SDN, which is based on the centralization of network management by a single control plane, the integration of IoT devices in the SDN also requires the need for robust detection mechanisms of the DDoS attacks, which can be adapted to the dynamic nature of IoT traffic. 12,13 DDoS is a cyberattack that involves flooding a network, a website, or an online service with massive amounts of traffic from various sources to disrupt normal operations. 14 Typically, the attacker employs a network of compromised devices, called a botnet, to carry out the attack, rendering the targeted system unavailable to legitimate users.…”

“…However, the massive scale and the heterogeneity of IoT networks make them vulnerable to various security threats, such as Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDoS), 11 which can compromise the availability and performance of critical IoT services. Likewise, given the specific conceptualization of the SDN, which is based on the centralization of network management by a single control plane, the integration of IoT devices in the SDN also requires the need for robust detection mechanisms of the DDoS attacks, which can be adapted to the dynamic nature of IoT traffic 12,13 …”