Data-Centric Security in Software Defined Networks (SDN)

The book focuses on applyingthedata-centric security (DCS)concept and leveraging the unique capabilities of software-defined networks (SDN) to improvethesecurity and resilience of corporate and government information systems used to process critical informationand implement business processes requiring special protection. As organisations increasingly rely on information technology, cyber threats to data and infrastructure can significantly affect their operations and adversely impact critical business processes.Appropriate authentication, authorisation, monitoring, and response measures must be implemented within the perimeter of the system to protectagainst adversaries. However,sophisticated attackers can compromise theperimeter defencesand evenremain inthe systemfor a prolonged time without the ownerbeing aware of these facts. Therefore, new security paradigms such as Zero Trust and DCS aimto provide defenceunderthe assumption that the boundary protections will be breached. Based onexperience and lessons learned from research on the application of DCS to defence systems, the authorspresentan approach to integratingthe DCS conceptwithSDN.They introduce a risk-aware approach toroutingin SDN, enabling defence-in-depth and enhanced securityfordata in transit.The book describes possible paths for an organisation to transition towards DCS, indicating some open and challenging issues requiring further investigation. To allow interested readers to conduct detailed studies and evaluate the exemplary implementation of DCS over SDN,thetext includes a short tutorial on using the emulation environment andlinks to the websites from which the software can be downloaded.