Low-Rate DDoS Attack on SDN Controller and Its Impact

Software Defined Network (SDN) has changed the perception we used to have towards computer communication. As number of devices grow in the network, management of the inter device communications become a daunting task. SDN offers an easier approach to manage the large scaling networks. Control plane has the global vision of the routing devices. Any kind of network misbehavior can be easily traced and responded in real time. SDN does not come without its challenges. Its architecture exposes many surfaces vulnerable to attacks. Controller being the central device to control the network is the most lucrative point for the attackers. This paper shows how controller as well as data plane are vulnerable to Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) attacks. Although various solutions have been proposed by researchers to detect and mitigate Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, but these solutions are limited in applications and scope. We will perform Low-Rate DDoS (LR-DDoS) attacks on controller to eat up the controller resources. Such low-density attacks are effective and most difficult to detect because of their low rate and distributed in nature. We will also focus on how to detect these attacks and possible solutions to mitigate the attacks.