Analysis of threats and countermeasures in NFV use cases

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is an emerging technology that yields several benefits to the industry. In NFV, the legacy network infrastructure is transferred into virtualized networks. Instead of using dedicated hardware and network equipment, NFV relies on virtualized components to deliver services to its users. This will allow the enhancement and extension of networks in a quick and low-cost manner. However, the benefits of this practice come at the price of system security, and we need to consider how to enhance this security. To design a secure system, we need to understand the possible threats to the system. Having a good understanding of the NFV processes' life cycle will help us in understanding how attackers may attack the system and hence help us defend against their attacks. In this paper, we systematically analyze some NFV use cases to enumerate their threats and analyze their misuse activities. The result of this analysis will allow us to enhance the security of NFV and suggest some security policies to improve system security. Moreover, based on the analysis we can find misuse patterns which provide possible countermeasures to stop them.