A systematic survey of DoS and DDoS attack mitigation techniques in software-defined networking

Abstract

Software-defined networking (SDN) has revolutionized traditional network management by decoupling the control and data planes, offering enhanced flexibility, programmability, and efficiency. However, this centralized architecture makes SDN vulnerable to Denial of Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, which severely impact network performance and reliability. Through overloading critical network components, especially the SDN controller, these attacks reduce network availability and result in significant service interruptions. This review offers a thorough summary of mitigation strategies designed to combat DoS and DDoS attacks in SDN systems. These attacks overwhelm network resources, disrupt services, and compromise the availability of critical components such as the SDN controller. Additionally, it explores the key challenges facing SDN in defending against DoS and DDoS attacks, such as the need for real-time detection, the impact of network scale, and the complexities of adaptive responses. As such, addressing DoS and DDoS attacks has become a critical research area for ensuring the security and robustness of SDN-based networks. It categorizes existing approaches based on detection methods, response strategies, and deployment models, providing a detailed analysis of their strengths and limitations. Furthermore, it discusses problems such as scalability, concurrent detection, and adaptability that hinder the effectiveness of current solutions. Emerging trends, including integrating artificial intelligence, blockchain, and collaborative frameworks, are highlighted as promising directions for future research. This aim is to give researchers, network admins, and cyber-security practitioners an insight into the state of the art as well as a basis on which to build for future SDN security advancements. This survey aims to serve as a comprehensive resource for researchers and practitioners seeking to imporve SDN's resilience against DoS and DDoS attacks.