Controller shield - unified security

Project type: Main

Controller shield is a general purpose plugin that provides controller security information to northbound applications. ODL collects lots of security information from different sources, such as endpoints or flows, and reports them to a correlation system that can analyze and provide details about an attack. Such information can be used to manually or dynamically configure firewalls, IPS, and other security systems.

Unified security also deals with information about compromising the SDN controller security itself. The ODL SDN controller is the only brain behind the whole network; therefore, securing and protecting the SDN controller itself is one of the main tasks that needs to be planned in advanced, during deployment.

Controller security can be compromised via different methods, such as an SDN application, network, and peers. Controller shield can monitor and report suspicious activities and attacks to an SDN controller via east-west (another SDN controller trying to establish peering) or via a network element (attacker within the network):