Flow Based Security for IoT Devices Using an SDN Gateway

With near exponential growth predicted in the number of Internet of Things (IoT) based devices within networked systems there is need of a means of providing their flexible and secure integration. Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a concept that allows for the centralised control and configuration of network devices, and also provides opportunities for the dynamic control of network traffic. This paper proposes the use of an SDN gateway as a distributed means of monitoring the traffic originating from and directed to IoT based devices. This gateway can then both detect anomalous behaviour and perform an appropriate response (blocking, forwarding, or applying Quality of Service). Initial results demonstrate that, while the addition of the attack detection functionality has an impact on the number of flow installations possible per second, it can successfully detect and block TCP and ICMP flood based attacks.