A SURVEY ON CONTROL PLANE SECURITY APPROACHES IN SDN ENVIRONMENTS: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES

Abstract

The emergence of Software-Defined Networking as a transformative paradigm in network architecture offers enhanced flexibility and scalability through a centralized control system. This control plane is responsible for routine decisions and coordinating policies across the network, which makes it a prime target for malicious attacks. This study investigates recently proposed solutions for enhancing control plane security by analyzing their techniques, strengths, and weaknesses through a systematic review. The reviewed security techniques were clustered into four key approaches: authentication and authorization, data encryption and secure communication, intrusion detection and prevention, and resilience and fault tolerance. The issues and challenges of the techniques were highlighted for each categorized approach. Future research directions are presented to serve as a baseline for further study.