DoSGuard: Mitigating Denial-of-Service Attacks in Software-Defined Networks.

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Network Security
• Cybersecurity

Background:

• Software-Defined Networking (SDN) offers centralized network management but introduces vulnerabilities.
• Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks are critical threats in SDN due to weak message verification.
• Attackers exploit fake source addresses to launch DoS attacks in SDN environments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present DoSGuard, an efficient and protocol-independent defense framework for SDN networks.
• To detect and mitigate DoS attacks targeting SDN infrastructure.
• To provide a lightweight solution with limited overhead.

Main Methods:

• DoSGuard is implemented as an extension module for SDN controllers.
• It comprises three components: a monitor for host-switch information, a detector using OpenFlow messages, and a mitigator for packet filtering.
• A prototype was developed using the floodlight controller and evaluated in a simulation environment.

Main Results:

• DoSGuard achieved a detection precision of 98.72%.
• The average CPU utilization of the controller remained low, around 8%.
• The framework effectively mitigated DoS attacks with limited performance impact.

Conclusions:

• DoSGuard offers an effective solution for mitigating DoS attacks in SDN.
• The framework demonstrates high detection accuracy and low resource consumption.
• DoSGuard provides a practical and efficient security enhancement for SDN networks.