Covert channels in SDN: Leaking out information from controllers to end hosts

Abstract

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) enables diversified network functionalities with plentiful applications deployed on a logically-centralized controller. In order to work properly, applications are naturally provided with much information on SDN. However, this paper shows that malicious applications can exploit basic SDN mechanisms to build covert channels to stealthily leak out valuable information to end hosts, which can bypass network security policies and break physical network isolation. We design two types of covert channels with basic SDN mechanisms. The first type is a high-rate covert channel that exploits SDN proxy mechanisms to transmit covert messages to colluding hosts inside SDN. The second type is a low-rate covert channel that exploits SDN rule expiry mechanisms to transmit covert messages from SDN applications to any host on the Internet. We develop the prototypes of both covert channels in a real SDN testbed consisting of commercial hardware switches and an open source controller. Evaluations show that the covert channels successfully leak out a TLS private key from the controller to a host inside SDN at a rate of 200 bps with 0% bit error rate, or to a remote host on the Internet at a rate of 0.5 bps with less than 3% bit error rate. In addition, we discuss possible countermeasures to mitigate the covert channel attacks.