Enabling Device Trustworthiness for SDN-Enabled Internet -of- Battlefield Things

Military networks consist of heterogeneous devices that provide soldiers with real-time terrain and mission intel-ligence. The development of next-generation Software Defined Networks (SDN)-enabled devices is enabling the modernization of traditional military networks. Commonly, traditional military networks take the trustworthiness of devices for granted. How-ever, the recent modernization of military networks introduces cyber attacks such as data and identity spoofing attacks. Hence, it is crucial to ensure the trustworthiness of network traffic to ensure the mission's outcome. This work proposes a Continuous Behavior-based Authentication (CBA) protocol that integrates network traffic analysis techniques to provide robust and efficient network management flow by separating data and control planes in SDN-enabled military networks. The evaluation of the CBA protocol aimed to measure the efficiency of the proposed protocol in realistic military networks. Furthermore, we analyze the overall network overhead of the CBA protocol and its accuracy to detect rogue network traffic data from field devices.

I. Introduction

In general, military tactical networks consist of field devices that use flat communication protocol to provide real-time terrain and mission intelligence to soldiers [1]. Commonly, soldiers rely on mission intelligence and communication in-frastructure to make quick judgments that impact the mission's outcome. Therefore, loss or rogue mission-related data can put the adversaries at an advantage [2]. However, traditional military tactical networks lack robust security mechanisms to ensure the security and integrity of mission intelligence. In general, the non-segmented network takes the trustworthiness of field devices and communication data for granted. Thus, traditional military tactical networks are vulnerable to state-of-art cyber attacks [3], including denial of service (DoS), identity spoofing, and data manipulation attacks that disrupt network traffic flows. In addition, adversaries can exploit the security vulnerabilities to introduce rogue field devices that transmit malicious information to soldiers and central commands, disrupting the mission's objectives and outcomes.