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Assessment Title
Rule Text
Southbound API control plane traffic must traverse an out-of-band path or be encrypted using a FIPS-validated cryptographic module.
Description
Discussion Text
Southbound APIs such as OpenFlow provide the forwarding tables to network devices such as switches and routers, both physical and virtual (hypervisor-based). The SDN controllers use the concept of flows to identify network traffic based on predefined rules that can be statically or dynamically programmed by the SDN control software, thereby determining how traffic should flow through network devices based on usage patterns, applications, and policy that can optimize traffic paths based on business requirements and not network infrastructure design.
If an SDN-aware router or switch received erroneous forwarding information from a rogue controller, traffic could be black-holed or even forwarded to a malicious user to sniff traffic and perform a man-in-the-middle attack. Hence, it is imperative to secure flow table updates by encrypting all southbound API traffic or deploying an out-of-band network for this traffic to traverse.
If an SDN-aware router or switch received erroneous forwarding information from a rogue controller, traffic could be black-holed or even forwarded to a malicious user to sniff traffic and perform a man-in-the-middle attack. Hence, it is imperative to secure flow table updates by encrypting all southbound API traffic or deploying an out-of-band network for this traffic to traverse.
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