عنوان

Towards a Security Reference Architecture for Network Function Virtualization

Number

TL52725

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Towards a Security Reference Architecture for Network Function Virtualization

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Alnaim, Abdulrahman K.

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Fernandez, Eduardo B.

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Florida Atlantic University

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2020

Text of Note

138 p.

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

Florida Atlantic University

Text preceding or following the note

2020

Text of Note

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is an emerging technology that transforms legacy hardware-based network infrastructure into software-based virtualized networks. Instead of using dedicated hardware and network equipment, NFV relies on cloud and virtualization technologies to deliver network services to its users. These virtualized network services are considered better solutions than hardware-based network functions because their resources can be dynamically increased upon the consumer's request. While their usefulness can't be denied, they also have some security implications. In complex systems like NFV, the threats can come from a variety of domains due to it containing both the hardware and the virtualize entities in its infrastructure. Also, since it relies on software, the network service in NFV can be manipulated by external entities like third-party providers or consumers. This leads the NFV to have a larger attack surface than the traditional network infrastructure. In addition to its own threats, NFV also inherits security threats from its underlying cloud infrastructure. Therefore, to design a secure NFV system and utilize its full potential, we must have a good understanding of its underlying architecture and its possible security threats. Up until now, only imprecise models of this architecture existed. We try to improve this situation by using architectural modeling to describe and analyze the threats to NFV. Architectural modeling using Patterns and Reference Architectures (RAs) applies abstraction, which helps to reduce the complexity of NFV systems by defining their components at their highest level. The literature lacks attempts to implement this approach to analyze NFV threats. We started by enumerating the possible threats that may jeopardize the NFV system. Then, we performed an analysis of the threats to identify the possible misuses that could be performed from them. These threats are realized in the form of misuse patterns that show how an attack is performed from the point of view of attackers. Some of the most important threats are privilege escalation, virtual machine escape, and distributed denial-of-service. We used a reference architecture of NFV to determine where to add security mechanisms in order to mitigate the identified threats. This produces our ultimate goal, which is building a security reference architecture for NFV.

Subject Term

Computer science

Alnaim, Abdulrahman K.

Fernandez, Eduardo B.

Florida Atlantic University

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y