Software‐defined networking security for private data center networks and clouds: Vulnerabilities, attacks, countermeasures, and solutions

Abstract

Software-defined networking (SDN) is an agile, modern networking approach that facilitates innovations in the networking paradigm. The abstracted and centralized network operating system facilitates the network management and reduces operational expenditure (OPEX). The open nature and simplicity of the data-forwarding plane dramatically reduces capital expenditure (CAPEX) by leveraging commodity servers and switches. SDN also lends itself very well to address major cloud computing issues and complement cloud services, especially in terms of network virtualization and networking as a service (NaaS).As a new technology, SDN does involve certain security challenges, which include distributed denial of service (DDoS) threats, build and run time injected malware, insider (tenant) attacks, and security holes resulting from controller misconfigurations. These are severe threats that can cripple an entire network. It is crucial to address the SDN vulnerabilities to ensure its successful deployment in private data center networks, on cloud platforms and beyond. Some security solutions leverage the built-in features of SDN, such as its controller software component, while other solutions provide external SDN applications running above the controller. This study reviews the security solutions for the vulnerabilities of state-of-the-art SDN controllers and the available countermeasures. Furthermore, an in-depth analysis of the SDN features that support security is presented, and some unresolved research issues on SDN controllers are identified.

UGRansome1819: A Novel Dataset for Anomaly Detection and Zero-Day Threats

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“…Security issues to be resolved and managed emanate from the complexity and vulnerability of the network architecture [3,4]. To protect the network, different preventive techniques such as Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs) were implemented [1][2][3][4]. In essence, an IDS can be stratified as a network-based intrusion detection system (NIDS) that controls networking events such as firewall logs or netflow, and host-based intrusion detection system (HIDS), which monitors events related to the network such as systems logs [5].…”

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“…25 In recent years, security and privacy issues in SDN environment and other networking environments become very crucial. [25][26][27][28][29] We analyzed several security protocols designed for software-defined networking to ensure privacy and security. However, most of the protocols in the literature are susceptible to various attacks like ARP poisoning, DDoS, 1 insider attacks, impersonation, and replay attacks.…”

An Overview on SDN and NFV Security Orchestration in Cloud Network Environment

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