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    Rights statement: © ACM, 2021. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in CPSIoTSec '21 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/3462633.3483979

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Controller-in-the-Middle: Attacks on Software Defined Networks in Industrial Control Systems

Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSNConference contribution/Paperpeer-review

Published
Publication date30/11/2021
Host publicationCPSIoTSec '21: Proceedings of the 2th Workshop on CPS&IoT Security and Privacy
Place of PublicationNew York
PublisherACM
Pages63-68
Number of pages6
ISBN (electronic)9781450384872
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Publication series

Name Joint Workshop on CPS & IoT Security and Privacy (CPSIoTSec)
PublisherACM

Abstract

Programmable networks are an area of increasing research activity and real-world usage. The most common example of programmable networks is software defined networking (SDN), in which the control and data planes are separated, with switches only acting as forwarding devices, controlled by software in the form of an SDN controller. As well as routing, this controller can perform other network functions such as load balancing and firewalls. There is an increasing amount of work proposing the use of SDN in industrial control systems (ICS) environments. The ability of SDN to dynamically control the network provides many potential benefits, including to security, utilising the dynamic orchestration of security controls. However, the centralisation of network control results in a single point of failure within the system, and thus potentially a major target of attack. An attacker who is capable of controlling the SDN controller gains near full control of the network. In this paper, we describe and analyse this very scenario. We demonstrate a number of simple, yet highly effective, attacks from a compromised SDN controller within an ICS environment which can break the real-time properties of industrial protocols, and potentially interfere with the operation of physical processes.

Bibliographic note

© ACM, 2021. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in CPSIoTSec '21 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/3462633.3483979