A Security Architecture Against Service Function Chaining Threats
draft-nguyen-sfc-security-architecture-00

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Network Working Group                                         CT. NGUYEN
Internet-Draft                                                   M. Park
Intended status: Informational                       Soongsil University
Expires: May 27, 2020                                  November 24, 2019

   A Security Architecture Against Service Function Chaining Threats
               draft-nguyen-sfc-security-architecture-00

Abstract

   Service Function Chaining (SFC) provides a special capability that
   defines an ordered list of network services as a virtual chain and
   makes a network more flexible and manageable.  However, SFC is
   vulnerable to various attacks caused by compromised switches,
   especially the middlebox-bypass attack.  In this document, we propose
   a security architecture that can detect not only middlebox-bypass
   attacks but also other incorrect forwarding actions by compromised
   switches.  The existing solutions to protect SFC against compromised
   switches and middlebox-bypass attacks can only solve individual
   problems.  The proposed architecture uses both probe-based and
   statistics-based methods to check the probe packets with random pre-
   assigned keys and collect statistics from middleboxes for detecting
   any abnormal actions in SFC.

Status of This Memo

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on May 27, 2020.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2019 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

NGUYEN & Park             Expires May 27, 2020                  [Page 1]
Internet-Draft       Detecting_Compromised_Switches        November 2019

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Compromised Switches  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Architecture Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.1.  Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.2.  Proposed Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.3.  Probe Packet Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     4.4.  Statistics Checking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   5.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   Appendix A.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9

1.  Introduction

   In recent years, Service Function Chaining (SFC) has emerged with the
   robust development of Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network
   Function Virtualization (NFV).  SFC defines ordered virtual chains of
   service functions (e.g., firewalls, load balancing, network address
   translation, etc.) and steers the network traffic through them, which
   brings many benefits from virtualized software-defined
   infrastructure.  Service functions are provided by specialized
   network entities called middleboxes.  One middlebox is commonly
   connected to a switch, and SFC connects switches to make a chain with
   the required services.  Middleboxes are responsible for processing
   packet and forwarding packet to the attached switches in the service
   chain.

   However, there are some security vulnerabilities for packets traverse
   in SFC, especially with compromised switches.  A special attack
   called "middlebox-bypass attack" was proposed, which happens when
   compromised switches forward packets to the next-hop middlebox in the
   SFC without sending them to its attached middlebox.  This means that
   packets are not processed by all service functions inside
   middleboxes, which does not meet the original goal of SFC.
   Attackers, therefore, can bypass some important service functions,