Exploiting SDN Approach to Tackle Cloud Computing Security Issues in the ATC Scenario

Abstract

Cloud Computing has been receiving great attention in the last few years due to the benefits it provides in terms of flexibility, scalability, virtualization and service provision. Nevertheless, many companies remain reluctant to such a cutting-edge technology due to the serious security issues affecting virtualized environments, especially in critical application scenarios where high safety and dependability levels are required. This work is aimed at discussing and presenting the main security threats for cloud computing infrastructures, as well as proposing a novel architecture in charge of reacting to security attacks in Infrastructure as a Service platforms. The basic idea is to migrate the attacked virtual appliance and to reconfigure the network by means of Software Defined Networking approach. The paper presents the architecture we have in mind and that will be deployed and validated against a real world distributed Air Traffic Control system, for which missing dependability and security targets would result in huge business and human losses.