A Comprehensive Survey of Security Threats and their Mitigation Techniques for next-generation SDN Controllers

Han, Tao; Jan, Syed; Tan, Thomas; Usman, Muhammad; Jan, Mian; Khan, Rahim; Xu, Yongzhao

Abstract

Software Dened Network (SDN) and Network Virtualization (NV) are emerged paradigms that simplied the control and management of the next generation networks, most importantly, Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing, and Cyber-Physical Systems. The Internet of Things (IoT) includes a diverse range of a vast collection of heterogeneous devices that require interoperable communication, scalable platforms and security provisioning. Security provisioning to an SDN based IoT network pose a real security challenge leading to various serious security threats due to the connection of various heterogeneous devices having a wide range of access protocols . Furthermore, the logical centralized controlled intelligence of the SDN architecture represents a plethora of security challenges due to its single point of failure. it may throw the en tire network into chaos and thus expose it to various known and unknown security threats and attacks. security of SDN controlled IoT environment is still in infancy and thus remains the prime research agenda for both the industry and academia. This paper comprehensively reviews the current state-of-the-art security threats, vulnerabilities and issues at the control plane. Moreover, this paper contributes by presenting a detailed classfication of various security attacks on the control layer. A comprehensive state-of-the-art review of the latest mitigation techniques for various security breaches is also presented. Finally, the paper presents future research directions and challenges for further investigation down the line.

Citation

Han, T., Jan, S., Tan, T., Usman, M., Jan, M., Khan, R., & Xu, Y. (2020). A Comprehensive Survey of Security Threats and their Mitigation Techniques for next-generation SDN Controllers. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, 32(16), Article e5300. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpe.5300

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 21, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Apr 17, 2019
• Publication Date: 2020-08
• Deposit Date: Mar 22, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 18, 2020
• Journal: Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience
• Print ISSN: 1532-0626
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 32
• Issue: 16
• Article Number: e5300
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/cpe.5300
• Keywords: Software Defined Networks; Controller; Denial of Service attacks; Spoofing attacks; Malicious injection attacks; Link Flooding attacks
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1678834