A Strategy for Detection and Mitigation of DoS Attacks on Software-Defined Networks

Computer networks support applications in virtually every area of application and knowledge, and as such, they have widely distributed structures and are susceptible to security attacks in general. Software-Defined Networks (SDN), in turn, are a technological solution that has several advantages by separating the control plane from the data plane in the structuring of computer networks. Given this technological difference, software-defined networks are a network implementation paradigm used to mitigate network security attacks. In summary, the use of SDN to mitigate network attacks provides greater flexibility in implementing the attack strategy. However, the separation of control and data planes creates new points of vulnerability for the security of the network operation. The denial of service attack (DoS) of the type Syn-Flooding is one of the most common possible attacks. It can cause, concerning the network, the commitment to perform services and, concerning the operation of the SDN, the commitment in the bandwidth of the communication channel between the control planes and the data plane, the saturation of the ow table in the switch, and the increasing of the processing load in the controller. In general, the investigation about new strategies aimed at safety with SDN becomes necessary to improve security strategies for network attacks and maximize the reliability of SDN operation, allowing use in different application scenarios. This work presents a defense strategy against attacks of DoS Syn-Flooding using the SDN facilities of an integrated controller with an intrusion detection system (IDS). The proposed strategy aims to mitigate Syn-Flooding DoS attacks and the vulnerability arising from the use of SDN to mitigate attacks