ZT-SDN: An ML-powered Zero-Trust Architecture for Software-Defined Networks

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Katsis, Charalampos, Bertino, Elisa
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Katsis, Charalampos
Bertino, Elisa
author_facet Katsis, Charalampos
Bertino, Elisa
contents Zero Trust (ZT) is a security paradigm aiming to curtail an attacker's lateral movements within a network by implementing least-privilege and per-request access control policies. However, its widespread adoption is hindered by the difficulty of generating proper rules due to the lack of detailed knowledge of communication requirements and the characteristic behaviors of communicating entities under benign conditions. Consequently, manual rule generation becomes cumbersome and error-prone. To address these problems, we propose ZT-SDN, an automated framework for learning and enforcing network access control in Software-Defined Networks. ZT-SDN collects data from the underlying network and models the network "transactions" performed by communicating entities as graphs. The nodes represent entities, while the directed edges represent transactions identified by different protocol stacks observed. It uses novel unsupervised learning approaches to extract transaction patterns directly from the network data, such as the allowed protocol stacks and port numbers and data transmission behavior. Finally, ZT-SDN uses an innovative approach to generate correct access control rules and infer strong associations between them, allowing proactive rule deployment in forwarding devices. We show the framework's efficacy in detecting abnormal network accesses and abuses of permitted flows in changing network conditions with real network datasets. Additionally, we showcase ZT-SDN's scalability and the network's performance when applied in an SDN environment.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_15020
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle ZT-SDN: An ML-powered Zero-Trust Architecture for Software-Defined Networks
Katsis, Charalampos
Bertino, Elisa
Cryptography and Security
Zero Trust (ZT) is a security paradigm aiming to curtail an attacker's lateral movements within a network by implementing least-privilege and per-request access control policies. However, its widespread adoption is hindered by the difficulty of generating proper rules due to the lack of detailed knowledge of communication requirements and the characteristic behaviors of communicating entities under benign conditions. Consequently, manual rule generation becomes cumbersome and error-prone. To address these problems, we propose ZT-SDN, an automated framework for learning and enforcing network access control in Software-Defined Networks. ZT-SDN collects data from the underlying network and models the network "transactions" performed by communicating entities as graphs. The nodes represent entities, while the directed edges represent transactions identified by different protocol stacks observed. It uses novel unsupervised learning approaches to extract transaction patterns directly from the network data, such as the allowed protocol stacks and port numbers and data transmission behavior. Finally, ZT-SDN uses an innovative approach to generate correct access control rules and infer strong associations between them, allowing proactive rule deployment in forwarding devices. We show the framework's efficacy in detecting abnormal network accesses and abuses of permitted flows in changing network conditions with real network datasets. Additionally, we showcase ZT-SDN's scalability and the network's performance when applied in an SDN environment.
title ZT-SDN: An ML-powered Zero-Trust Architecture for Software-Defined Networks
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.15020