A Scalable Framework to Detect, Analyze, and Prevent Security Vulner abilities in Enterprise Software-Defined Networks

Abstract

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a rapidly growing technology that is enabling innovation on how network systems are designed and managed. Like any other technology, SDN is susceptible to numerous security threats. The separation of planes and centralized control topology of SDN makes it vulnerable to myriad of attacks. There has been rapid implementation of SDN in variety of networks and this is only growing with time. There are only handful of resources for enterprise networks that are actively transitioning their networks to SDN and require security specification.This paper proposes a security framework that integrates basic security requirements for SDN. First, the security vulnerabilities are identified by assessing the SDN topology. This provides understanding of the issue which is utilized to implement security mechanisms that help mitigate the vulnerabilities. The framework utilizes open-source tools and techniques and integrates well-known security mechanisms. Throughout the paper, the proposed framework is implemented and tested for its success in satisfying some of the basic and crucial security requirements. In doing so, this research offers viable security mechanisms for enterprise networks that are looking for performance and cost-effective security solutions.