Security challenges within Software Defined Networks

Abstract: A large amount of today's communication occurs within data centers where a large number of virtual servers (running one or more virtual machines) provide service providers with the infrastructure needed for their applications and services. In this thesis, we will look at the next step in the virtualization revolution, the virtualized network. Software-defined networking (SDN) is a relatively new concept that is moving the field towards a more software-based solution to networking. Today when a packet is forwarded through a network of routers, decisions are made at each router as to which router is the next hop destination for the packet. With SDN these decisions are made by a centralized SDN controller that decides upon the best path and instructs the devices along this path as to what action each should perform. Taking SDN to its extreme minimizes the physical network components and increases the number of virtualized components. The reasons behind this trend are several, although the most prominent are simplified processing and network administration, a greater degree of automation, increased flexibility, and shorter provisioning times. This in turn leads to a reduction in operating expenditures and capital expenditures for data center owners, which both drive the further development of this technology. Virtualization has been gaining ground in the last decade. However, the initial introduction of virtualization began in the 1970s with server virtualization offering the ability to create several virtual server instances on one physical server. Today we already have taken small steps towards a virtualized network by virtualization of network equipment such as switches, routers, and firewalls. Common to virtualization is that it is in early stages all of the technologies have encountered trust issues and general concerns related to whether software-based solutions are as rugged and reliable as hardwarebased solutions. SDN has also encountered these issues, and discussion of these issues continues among both believers and skeptics. Concerns about trust remain a problem for the growing number of cloud-based services where multitenant deployments may lead to loss of personal integrity and other security risks. As a relatively new technology, SDN is still immature and has a number of vulnerabilities. As with most software-based solutions, the potential for security risks increases. This thesis investigates how denial-of-service (DoS) attacks affect an SDN environment and a singlethreaded controller, described by text and via simulations. The results of our investigations concerning trust in a multi-tenancy environment in SDN suggest that standardization and clear service level agreements are necessary to consolidate customers’ confidence. Attracting small groups of customers to participate in user cases in the initial stages of implementation can generate valuable support for a broader implementation of SDN in the underlying infrastructure. With regard to denial-of-service attacks, our conclusion is that hackers can by target the centralized SDN controller, thus negatively affect most of the network infrastructure (because the entire infrastructure directly depends upon a functioning SDN controller). SDN introduces new vulnerabilities, which is natural as SDN is a relatively new technology. Therefore, SDN needs to be thoroughly tested and examined before making a widespread deployment.