As the next-generation network architecture, software-defined networking (SDN) has great potential. But how to forward data packets safely is a big challenge today. In SDN, packets are transferred according to flow rules which are made and delivered by the controller. Once flow rules are modified, the packets might be redirected or dropped. According to related research, we believe that the key to forward data flows safely is keeping the consistency of flow rules. However, existing solutions place little emphasis on the safety of flow rules. After summarizing the shortcomings of the existing solutions, we propose FRChain to ensure the security of SDN data forwarding. FRChain is a novel scheme that uses blockchain to secure flow rules in SDN and to detect compromised nodes in the network when the proportion of malicious nodes is less than one-third. The scheme places the flow strategies into blockchain in form of transactions. Once an unmatched flow rule is detected, the system will issue the problem by initiating a vote and possible attacks will be deduced based on the results. To simulate the scheme, we utilize BigchainDB, which has good performance in data processing, to handle transactions. The experimental results show that the scheme is feasible, and the additional overhead for network performance and system performance is less than similar solutions. Overall, FRChain can detect suspicious behaviors and deduce malicious nodes to keep the consistency of flow rules in SDN.
Shiva Kazemi Taskou, Mehdi Rasti, Pedro H. J. Nardelli
Network function virtualization (NFV) is a promising technology to make 5G networks flexible and agile. NFV decreases operatorsâ OPEX and CAPEX by decoupling the physical hardware from the functions they perform. In NFV, usersâ service request can be viewed as a service function chain (SFC) consisting of several virtual network functions (VNFs) which are connected through virtual links. Resource allocation in NFV is done through a centralized authority called NFV Orchestrator (NFVO). This centralized authority suffers from some drawbacks such as single point of failure and security. Blockchain (BC) technology is able to address these problems by decentralizing resource allocation. The drawbacks of NFVO in NFV architecture and the exceptional BC characteristics to address these problems motivate us to focus on NFV resource allocation to usersâ SFCs without the need for an NFVO. To this end, we assume there are two types of users: users who send SFC requests (SFC requesting users) and users who perform mining process (miner users). For SFC requesting users, we formulate NFV resource allocation (NFV-RA) problem as a multi-objective problem to minimize the energy consumption and utilized resource cost, simultaneously. To address this problem, we propose an Approximation-based Resource Allocation algorithm (ARA) using Majorization-Minimization approximation method to convexify NFV-RA problem. Furthermore, due to the high complexity of ARA algorithm, we propose a low complexity Hungarian-based Resource Allocation (HuRA) algorithm using Hungarian algorithm for server allocation. Through the simulation results, we show that our proposed ARA and HuRA algorithms achieve near-optimal performance with lower computational complexity. Also, ARA algorithm outperforms the existing algorithms in terms of number of active servers, energy consumption, and average latency. Moreover, the mining process is the foundation of BC technology. In wireless networks, mining is performed by resource-limited mobile users. Since the mining process requires high computational complexity, miner users cannot perform it alone. So, in this article, we assume that miner users can perform mining process with participating of other users. For mining process, the problem of minimizing the energy consumption and cost of usersâ processing resources is formulated as a linear programming problem that can be optimally solved in polynomial time.
As the most fundamental infrastructure in the current Internet, the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) supports the inter-connectivity of different Autonomous Systems (ASs) and then the reachability can be achieved from any network in the Internet. However, due to the lack of security consideration during its original design, the BGP suffers from multiple security threats. Another challenge is that it cannot support the future sophisticated applications with deterministic routing. In this article, we propose a novel BGP management architecture, namely BGPChain, which is based on the blockchain in order to establish a secure, smart, and agile routing infrastructure for the future Internet.
João Paulo de Brito Gonçalves, Henrique Carvalho de Resende, Esteban Municio, Rodolfo da Silva Villaça ¡ 5 authors
Network slicing is the 5G research field that addresses the services requirements compliance over the same network. In order to robustly and securely manage the different slices in a network, we propose to use blockchain, a distributed structure that stores data without the need of an external entity to ensure data integrity and reliability. In this paper, we present a proposal on deploying a network slicing solution for Non-Public Networks (NPNs) in health environments using blockchain technology. Our solution aims to provide both performance isolation over wireless networks and privacy.
Off-chain is a common approach to deal with the scalability problem of blockchain networks. It enables users to execute multiple payments without committing each of them to the blockchain by relying on predefined payment channels. A pair of users can employ a payment even without a direct channel between them, via routing the payment through off-chain channels involving other intermediate users. Users together with the off-chain channels form a graph, known as the off-chain network topology. The off-chain topology and the payment characteristics affect network performance such as the average number of intermediate users a payment is routed through, the amount of fees, or channel capacities needed to successfully route payments. In this paper, we study two basic problems in off-chain network design. First, efficiently mapping users to an off-chain topology with a known structure. Second, constructing a topology of a bounded number of channels that can serve well users with associated payments. We design algorithms for both problems and evaluate them based on real data from Raiden, the off-chain extension for Ethereum.
Domain Name System (DNS) is a widely used infrastructure for remote control and batch management of IoT devices. As a critical Internet infrastructure, DNS is structured as a treeâlike hierarchy with single root zone authority at the top, which puts the operation of DNS at risk from single point of failure. The current root zone management is lack of transparency and accountability, since only the root zone file is published as the final outcome of operations inside the root zone authority. Towards distributed root zone operation in DNS, this paper presents a blockchainâbased root operation architectureâRootChain, composed of multiple root servers. On the basis of maintaining the single root authority for topâlevel domain (TLD), RootChain decentralizes TLD data publication by empowering delegated TLD authorities to publish authenticated data directly. The transparency and accountability of root zone operation are attained by smartâcontracting the whole life cycle of TLD operation and logging all operations on the chain. RootChain is transparent to recursive/stub resolver and DNS/DNSSECâcompatible. A proofâofâconcept prototype of RootChain has been implemented with Hyperledger Fabric and evaluated by experiments.
Abstract With assistance from Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Blockchain, networks have become more creative to build and maintain over the last few years. The inflexibility of modern network architecture is presenting researchers with a tough achievement. SDN replaces existing inescapable and complicated networks with a creative way of separating the control plane from the data plane and fixing those constraints, namely configurations done manually, monitoring, protection, usability, and functionality. This paper provides an overview of blockchain and SDN in healthcare. Various existing projects of their integration have been studied the benefits of the Blockchain provides security, privacy, integrity to the health care data has been discussed. The decentralization feature of blockchain provides access to data within and across the nation. Different use cases are discussed in the paper that provides the acceptability of blockchain and SDN in healthcare. This paper provides the overview and results that integration of blockchain and SDN in healthcare is a good research area and various initiatives have been taken to explore its integration.
Bimal Ghimire, Danda B. Rawat, Chunmei Liu, Jiang Li
The Internet of Unmanned Vehicles (IoUV) is regarded as an emerging technology for military applications not only to make surveillance systems and battlefield operations fully coordinated and automated, but also to provide significant strategic advantages. All the UVs form a coordinated network for exchanging information in IoUV, which enhances context awareness and risk analysis, and improves response time to make the mission effective. This article provides a perspective of fusion of blockchain technology with software defined IoUV, also known as extended 5G, for the battlefield scenario. Software defined IoUV dynamically configures the network parameters and provides network visibility for better security and manageability of the network in IoUV. Block-chain technology helps to provide trustworthy command and control operations in IoUV and stores those operations in tamper-resistant digital ledgers in the form of transactions. Unmanned vehicles (UVs) with high computing, storage, battery life and transmission power act as miners that validate every transaction and are responsible for creating blocks of the blockchain. However, current blockchain technology suffers from scalability; thus, we propose sharding-enabled blockchain to address the issue where shards of lightweight UVs maintain the required number of miners/ auditors to handle the issues when a miner gets destroyed or damaged in the battlefield. Some participating UVs are used as wireless stations to provide persistent wireless connectivity in IoUV. The proposed framework aims to increase the trust and accountability, and to reduce business friction among different units involved in the battlefield.
In satellite communication systems, satellite power and processing capacities are limited, which means that storage and security are also constrained. Satellite communication channels are extremely vulnerable to hackers and external interference signals. Protecting satellite networks from illegal information access and use can be extremely challenging. In this paper, an architecture composed of satellite and ground equipment is developed that integrates communication network authentication and privacy protection structures. In the proposed scheme, the communication, registration, authentication, and revocation of information are achieved through stages to improve communication security. The satellite forwards the collected information to a ground base station, which has a strong data processing capacity. The ground base station records all the key parameters in the distributed blockchain, and all malicious node certificates are removed from the system. To further enhance data transmission security, the key is transferred using an asymmetric encryption algorithm. To measure the robustness of using the proposed network architecture, under the same attack condition, an invulnerability analysis is performed. After conducting simulation experiments, the results show that the proposed scheme greatly improves communication security and protection.
Multicontroller softwareâdefined networks have been widely adopted to enable management of largeâscale networks. However, they are vulnerable to several attacks including false data injection, which creates topology inconsistency among controllers. To deal with this issue, we propose BMCâSDN, a security architecture that integrates blockchain and multicontroller SDN and divides the network into several domains. Each SDN domain is managed by one master controller that communicates through blockchain with the masters of the other domains. The master controller creates blocks of network flow updates, and its redundant controllers validate the new block based on a proposed reputation mechanism. The reputation mechanism rates the controllers, i.e., block creator and voters, after each voting operation using constant and combined adaptive fading reputation strategies. The evaluation results demonstrate a fast and optimal detection of fraudulent flow rule injection.
Shahid Abbas, Nadeem Javaid, Ahmad Almogren, Sardar Muhammad Gulfam ¡ 6 authors
Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging domain in which different devices communicate with each other through minimum human intervention. IoT devices are usually operated in hostile and unattended environments. Moreover, routing in current IoT architecture becomes inefficient due to malicious and unauthenticated nodesâ existence, minimum network lifetime, insecure routing, etc. This paper proposes a lightweight blockchain based authentication mechanism where ordinary sensorsâ credentials are stored. As IoT nodes have a short lifespan due to energy depletion, few credentials are stored in the blockchain to achieve lightweight authentication. Moreover, the route calculation is performed by a genetic algorithm enabled software defined network controller, which is also used for on-demand routing to optimize the energy consumption of the nodes in the IoT network. Furthermore, a route correctness mechanism is proposed to check the existence of malicious nodes in the calculated route. Moreover, a detection mechanism is proposed to restrict the malicious nodesâ activities, while a malicious nodeâs list is maintained in the blockchain, which is used in the route correctness mechanism. The proposed model is evaluated by performing intensive simulations. The effectiveness of the proposed model is depicted in terms of gas consumption, which shows the optimized utilization of resources. The residual energy of the network shows optimized route calculation, while the malicious node detection method shows the number of packets dropped.
In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology has developed rapidly and has been widely used in military operations, medical rescue, environmental monitoring, and so on. UAV networks are an important foundation for large-scale UAV collaborative work. Traditional mobile self-or-ganizing network technology is too complicated to be quickly constructed and dynamically adjusted according to application requirements. In this article, we propose a new type of UAV network based on SDN architecture and blockchain technology, which is named SUV. By using blockchain technology, SUV implements a logically centralized but physically distributed control plane, which is responsible for the routing calculation and configuration management of the UAV network. SUV can quickly build UAV networks according to the application requirements and communication environment. It has features such as flexibility, survivability, security, and programmability, and is suitable for 5G-oriented UAV networking.
Due to the simultaneous development of DC-microgrids (DC-MGs) and the use of intelligent control, monitoring and operation methods, as well as their structure, these networks can be threatened by various cyber-attacks. Overall, a typical smart DC-MG includes battery, supercapacitors and power electronic devices, fuel cell, solar Photovoltaic (PV) systems, and loads such as smart homes, plug-in hybrid electrical vehicle (PHEV), smart sensors and network communication like fiber cable or wireless to send and receive data. Given these issues, cyber-attack detection and securing data exchanged in smart DC-MGs like CPS has been considered by experts as a significant subject in recent years. In this study, in order to detect false data injection attacks (FDIAs) in a MG system, Hilbert-Huang transform methodology along with blockchain-based ledger technology is used for enhancing the security in the smart DC-MGs with analyzing the voltage and current signals in smart sensors and controllers by extracting the signal details. Results of simulation on the different cases are considered with the objective of verifying the efficacy of the proposed model. The results offer that the suggested model can provide a more precise and robust detection mechanism against FDIA and improve the security of data exchanging in a smart DC-MG.
Anichur Rahman, Md. Jahidul Islam, Antonio Montieri, Mostofa Kamal Nasir ¡ 10 authors
Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Blockchain are leading technologies used worldwide to establish safe network communication as well as build secure network infrastructures. They provide a robust and reliable platform to address threats and face challenges such as security, privacy, flexibility, scalability, and confidentiality. Driven by these assumptions, this paper presents an optimized energy-efficient and secure Blockchain-based software-defined IoT framework for smart networks. Indeed, SDN and Blockchain technologies have proven to be able to suitably manage resource utilization and to develop secure network communication across the IoT ecosystem. However, there is a lack of research works that present a comprehensive definition of such a framework that can meet the requirements of the IoT ecosystem (i.e. efficient energy utilization and reduced end-to-end delay). Therefore, in this research, we present a layered hierarchical architecture for the deployment of a distributed yet efficient Blockchain-enabled SDN-IoT framework that ensures efficient cluster-head selection and secure network communication via the identification and isolation of rouge switches. Besides, the Blockchain-enabled flow-rules record keeps track of the rules enforced in the switches and maintains the consistency within the controller cluster. Finally, we assess the performance of the proposed framework in a simulation environment and show that it can achieve optimized energy-utilization, end-to-end delay, and throughput compared to considered baselines, thus being able to achieve efficiency and security in the smart network.
With the increasing application of the IoT, more and more scenarios need to establish efficient and stable dedicated communication networks. In the 5G era, communication network operators can lease customized optical network slices to users, to meet users' different needs in the application scenarios of the IoT. However, in the multi-user transaction process of optical network slicing, there will be untrusted mechanisms and important data security issues. This paper uses blockchain technology to ensure the optical network slicing lease transaction environment, so that users can complete slicing transactions more safely and build a high-quality dedicated communication network for IoT application scenarios.
Anichur Rahman, Md. Jahidul Islam, Md. Saikat Islam Khan, Sumaiya Kabir ¡ 6 authors
Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Blockchain (BC) are the most recent research trends in emerging technology. These technologies have currently been used in the IoT networking environment for various purposes, such as protection, stability, scalability, confidentiality, and so on. Such techniques can be used in this regard to effectively provide security, privacy, and confidentiality to cloud storage. In this paper, the authors proposed Block-SDoTCloud architecture to significantly enhance security within the cloud storage network. In order to give the cloud storage environment the requisite facilities, two leading technologies, i.e., SDN and Blockchain were applied. The centralized SDN controller provided the proposed model with tremendous reliability, versatility, and load balancing in one side while on the other hand, a distributed Blockchain created a deep trust between the transaction levels resulting into effective protection for the presented scheme. The efficiency of the proposed architecture is justified through close observation of simulation with a careful selection of relevant parameters.
Existing communication protocols in security networks are highly centralized. While this naively makes the controls easier to physically secure, external actors require fewer resources to disrupt the system because there are fewer points in the system can be interrupted without the entire system failing. We present a solution to this problem using a proof-of-work-based blockchain implementation built on MultiChain. We construct a test-bed network containing visual imagers and microwave sensor information. These data types are ubiquitous in perimeter security systems and allow a realistic representation of a real-world network architecture. The cameras in this system use an object detection algorithm to find important targets in the scene. The raw data from both the sensors and imagers are placed in a transaction. These transactions are then bundled into blocks and broadcast to the rest of the network using the Bitcoin-based MultiChain protocol. We develop five tests to examine the security metrics of our network. We performed the five security metric test using different sized networks from 7 to 39 nodes to determine how the metrics scale with respect to size. We find that when compared to a centralized architecture our implementation provides a resiliency increase that is expected from a blockchain- based protocol without slowing the system so much that a human operator would notice. Furthermore, our approach is able to detect tampering in real time. Based on these results, we theorize that security networks in general could use a blockchain- based approach in a meaningful way.
Collaborative intrusion detection system (CIDS) shares the critical detection-control information across the nodes for improved and coordinated defense. Software-defined network (SDN) introduces the controllers for the networking control, including for the networks spanning across multiple autonomous systems, and therefore provides a prime platform for CIDS application. Although previous research studies have focused on CIDS in SDN, the real-time secure exchange of the detection-relevant information (e.g., the detection signature) remains a critical challenge. In particular, the CIDS research still lacks robust trust management of the SDN controllers and the integrity protection of the collaborative defense information to resist against the insider attacks transmitting untruthful and malicious detection signatures to other participating controllers. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-enabled collaborative intrusion detection in SDN, taking advantage of the blockchain's security properties. Our scheme achieves three important security goals: to establish the trust of the participating controllers by using the permissioned blockchain to register the controller and manage digital certificates, to protect the integrity of the detection signatures against malicious detection signature injection, and to attest the delivery/update of the detection signature to other controllers. Our experiments in CloudLab based on a prototype built on Ethereum, Smart Contract, and IPFS demonstrates that our approach efficiently shares and distributes detection signatures in real-time through the trustworthy distributed platform.
Adaptive capacity with cost-efficient resource provisioning is a crucial capability for future 6G networks. In this work, we conceptualize "expansive networks" which refers to a networking paradigm where networks should be able to extend their resource base by opportunistic but self-controlled expansive actions. To this end, we elaborate on a key aspect of an expansive network as a concrete example: Spectrum resource at the PHY layer. Evidently, future wireless networks need to provide efficient mechanisms to coexist in the licensed and unlicensed bands and operate in expansive mode. In this work, we first describe spectrum sharing issues and possibilities in 6G networks for expansive networks. We then present security implications of expansive networks, an important concern due to more open and coupled systems in expansive networks. We also discuss two key enablers, namely distributed ledger technology (DLT) and network intelligence via machine learning, which are promising to realize expansive networks for the spectrum sharing aspect.
Othmane Friha, Mohamed Amine Ferrag, Lei Shu, Mehdi Nafa
In this paper, we propose a security architecture that integrates blockchain technology, fog computing, and software-defined networking for agricultural internet of things. The proposed security architecture is composed of three main parts: (a) an agricultural IoT data management system to provide real-time IoT data collection, analytic, visualization, and device management, (b) a blockchain-based integrity monitoring scheme to prevents erroneous delivery of controls and information, and (c) a virtual switch software to supports software-defined networking technologies to improve network management. Moreover, we test the proposed security architecture on an open-source IoT platform with combining Hyperledger Sawtooth blockchain and software-defined networking technologies under DDoS attacks. The performance evaluation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed security architecture.
Abstract: Insecure and portable devices in the smart cityâs Internet of Things (IoT) network are increasing at an incredible rate. Various distributed and centralized platforms against cyber-attacks have been implemented in recent years, but these platforms are inefficient due to their constrained levels of storage, high energy consumption, the central point of failure, underutilized resources, high latency, and etc. In addition, the current architecture confronts the problems of scalability, flexibility, complexity, monitoring, managing & collecting of IoT data, and defend against cyber-threats. To address these issues, the author presents distributed and decentralized Blockchain-Software Defined Networking (SDN) based energy-optimized architecture for IoT in smart cities. Thus, SDN continuous observing, controlling, managing IoT devices activities and detect possible attacks in the network; Blockchain provides adequate security & privacy against cyber-attacks, reduces the central point of failure issues; Network Function Virtualization (NFV) are used to saving energy, load balancing, as well as increasing the lifetime of the entire network. Also, we introduce a Cluster Head Selection (CHS) algorithm to reduce the energy consumption in the presented model. Finally, we analyze the performance using various parameters (e.g. throughput, response time, gas consumption, communication overhead) and demonstrating the result that provides higher throughput, lower response time, lower gas consumption than existing works for smart cities.
5G communications technologies are the backbone of future communications systems in satisfying different heterogeneous requirements of the industry and consumer applications. These systems rely on standardized protocols and heterogeneous architectures to engineer massive scaling of communication devices. Network Slicing (NS) can be incorporated into 5G to cater to the ever increasing needs of smart communications, ranging from Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) to Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC). In this article, we present the performance analysis of such a network using real-world deployment and testing scenarios with state based network slice allocation. To account for transparency and security, a Blockchain-based model is integrated within the network operations. In particular, we carefully account for the latency aware operations of Network Slicing along with its UE state based allocation by telecom providers using Blockchain. Furthermore, provisioning the Blockchain in the Network Slice allocations increases the transparency and efficiency of resource handling operations within the network.