FLOC 2018: FEDERATED LOGIC CONFERENCE 2018
Rule-Based Synthesis of Chains of Security Functions for Software-Defined Networks

Authors: Nicolas Schnepf, Rémi Badonnel, Abdelkader Lahmadi and Stephan Merz

Paper Information

Title:Rule-Based Synthesis of Chains of Security Functions for Software-Defined Networks
Authors:Nicolas Schnepf, Rémi Badonnel, Abdelkader Lahmadi and Stephan Merz
Proceedings:AVOCS Pre-proceedings
Editors: David Pichardie and Mihaela Sighireanu
Keywords:Security Management, Software-Defined Networking, Android Applications, Rule-Based Programming
Abstract:

ABSTRACT. Software-defined networks (SDN) offer a high degree of programmability for handling and forwarding packets. In particular, they allow network administrators to combine different security functions, such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and external services, into security chains designed to prevent or mitigate attacks against end user applications. Because of their complexity, the configuration of these chains can benefit from formal techniques for their automated construction and verification. We propose in this paper a rule-based system for automating the composition and configuration of chains of security functions for Android applications. Given a characterization of the network traffic generated by an application and the set of permissions it requires, our rules construct an abstract representation of a custom security chain. This representation is then translated into a concrete implementation of the chain in Pyretic, a domain-specific language for programming SDN controllers. We prove that the chains produced by our rules satisfy a number of correctness properties such as the absence of black holes or loops, and shadowing freedom, and that they are coherent with the underlying security policy.

Pages:16
Talk:Jul 19 16:00 (Session 136A: AVoCS Regular Papers 4)
Paper: