BlackNurse-SC: A Novel Attack on SDN Controller

Software-Defined Network (SDN) makes the network programmable by offloading the network modules to the controller in the control plane. Though the controller offers several security features, it is susceptible to attacks. In this letter, we introduce a novel attack named BlackNurse against the SDN C...

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Veröffentlicht in:IEEE communications letters Jg. 25; H. 7; S. 2146 - 2150
Hauptverfasser: Ravi, Nagarathna, Shalinie, S. Mercy
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: New York IEEE 01.07.2021
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Schlagworte:
BlackNurse-SC attack
Computer crime
Control systems
controller
Controllers
Cybersecurity
Denial of service attacks
distributed denial of service
Network topologies
Network topology
Poisons
Programmable logic controllers
Receivers
Security
Software-defined networking
Software-defined networks
Time factors
Topology
ISSN:1089-7798, 1558-2558
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Zusammenfassung:Software-Defined Network (SDN) makes the network programmable by offloading the network modules to the controller in the control plane. Though the controller offers several security features, it is susceptible to attacks. In this letter, we introduce a novel attack named BlackNurse against the SDN Controller (BlackNurse-SC). BlackNurse-SC targets to bring down the controller and create a Denial of Service (DoS) to the whole network. The attacker disrupts the controller by sending out false error messages from his bots. BlackNurse-SC has two salient features. First, the attacker need not generate a flood of malicious packets, thus making it difficult for the controller to detect that it is subject to attack. Second, the attacker poisons the network topology view, which leads to improper functioning of the controller. We launch the attack in our SDN testbed to ascertain the effects it can create in the network. BlackNurse-SC brought down the controller within 20 seconds.
Bibliographie:ObjectType-Article-1
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ISSN:1089-7798
1558-2558
DOI:10.1109/LCOMM.2021.3075898