Automated security in software-defined networks

Many companies use the Internet for their business operation and it has become a crucial factor for their success, but the connection of a companys network to the Internet introduces new security challenges. A steady growth of incidents shows, that network security has become a vital part of the security policy of modern companies. Network security is a subject of ongoing research to overcome the risks of potential attacks. Especially attacks from inside the network cause high damage. An effective approach to encounter these attacks is, to secure entire network connections between hosts. This is called end-to-end security and is, for example, used to access secured servers. The usage of the network infrastructure further improves the network security. Software-Defined Networking, a special kind of network management, is able to automate many tasks in the network and to reduce the effort for the configuration. The combination of both approaches, end-to-end security and Software-Defined Networking, enables the development of automated security measures to overcome current and future threats for networks. This work shows how end-to-end security can be integrated in Software-Defined Networking to improve the overall network security. Furthermore, an architecture to integrate the hosts of a network into Software-Defined Networking is outlined and evaluated. The evaluation shows, that the overall network security is improved without stressing the network and that flexible and effective security measures can be developed