Mitigation of lldp topological poisoning attack in sdn environments using mininet emulator

Abstract

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm permits to have scalability and flexibility in the network management throughout a centralized control that has the global view of the network topology, but it introduces new security issues. In this paper, the Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) topological poisoning attack has been studied and analysed in order to provide possible mitigation solutions through the use of Mininet emulator and the POX controller. In particular, it is added to the LLDP protocol the integrity check using three different types of cryptographic algorithms such as Hash-based message authentication code (HMAC), Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) using RSA and Elliptic Curve DSA (ECDSA). The performance evaluation of the proposal is provided considering a network topology where an attacker hijacks/impersonates an host already connected to the network.