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SDN Switches Not Hard To Compromise, Researcher Says
alphadogg writes: Software-defined switches hold a lot of promise for network operators, but new research due to be presented at Black Hat will show that security measures haven't quite caught up yet. Gregory Pickett, founder of the Chicago-based security firm Hellfire Security, has developed several attacks against network switches that use Onie, the Linux-based Open Network Install Environment that competes with OpenDaylight. Being able to exploit the vulnerability to put malware on SDN switches would have full visibility into all of the traffic running through the switch, enabling large-scale spying.
So long as "features" count for more than security, this will continue.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
If and when the human race learns to code software that is very hard or impossible to compromise, SDN may have a place, but before that, it is an exceptionally bad idea. It is also not a new bad idea, but an old one that has been renamed. For example, "Active Networking" did try this thing before.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
... plane outside the confines of the device and make it communicate over a common (not hardened and not separate) channel/network.