Jude Okwuibe

Secure Virtual Private LAN Services: An overview with performance evaluation

Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLS) is a widely utilized Layer 2 (L2) Virtual Private Network (VPN) architecture in industrial networks. In the last few years, VPLS networks gained an immense popularity as an ideal network architecture to interconnect industrial legacy SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) and process control devices over a shared network. However, legacy VPLS architectures are highly vulnerable to security threats which are initiated at the insecure shared network segment. Thus, secure VPLS architectures are becoming popular among industrial enterprises. In this article, we provide an overview of existing secure VPLS architectures with a performance evaluation. We evaluate the performance penalty of security on throughput, latency and jitter in a real world testbed. From these experiments, we seek to highlight the drawbacks of existing secure VPLS architectures after implementing them in a real networking environment. Moreover, we try to underscore future research questions that will help to improve the performance of secure VPLS networks.

5G security: Analysis of threats and solutions

5G will provide broadband access everywhere, entertain higher user mobility, and enable connectivity of massive number of devices (e.g. Internet of Things (IoT)) in an ultrareliable and affordable way. The main technological enablers such as cloud computing, Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) are maturing towards their use in 5G. However, there are pressing security challenges in these technologies besides the growing concerns for user privacy. In this paper, we provide an overview of the security challenges in these technologies and the issues of privacy in 5G. Furthermore, we present security solutions to these challenges and future directions for secure 5G systems.

Enhancing Security of Software Defined Mobile Networks

Traffic volumes in mobile networks are rising and end-user needs are rapidly changing. Mobile network operators need more flexibility, lower network operating costs, faster service roll-out cycles, and new revenue sources. The 5th Generation (5G) and future networks aim to deliver ultra-fast and ultra-reliable network access capable of supporting the anticipated surge in data traffic and connected nodes in years to come. Several technologies have been developed to meet these emergent demands of future mobile networks, among these are software defined networking, network function virtualization, and cloud computing. In this paper, we discuss the security challenges these new technologies are prone to in the context of the new telecommunication paradigm. We present a multi-tier component-based security architecture to address these challenges and secure 5G software defined mobile network (SDMN), by handling security at different levels to protect the network and its users. The proposed architecture contains five components, i.e., secure communication, policy-based communication, security information and event management, security defined monitoring, and deep packet inspection components for elevated security in the control and the data planes of SDMNs. Finally, the proposed security mechanisms are validated using test bed experiments.

Software Defined Monitoring (SDM) for 5G mobile backhaul networks

Software Defined Network (SDN) is an advanced approach to designing dynamic, manageable, cost-effective, and adaptable network architectures. SDN will play a key role as an enabler for 5G and future networks. Transferring network monitoring functions to a software entity working in conjunction with configurable hardware accelerators through a scheme called Software Defined Monitoring (SDM) is one promising way to attain the dynamism necessary for the monitoring of the next generation-networks. In this paper, we propose a novel SDM architecture for future mobile backhual networks. As an SDN solution, the proposed architecture provides more granular and dynamic network management functions through its programmable interface, centralized control, and virtualized abstractions. At the same time, the SDM framework intuitively seem prone to various challenges that come with the separation of the control and data planes of middleboxes. This paper collects specific opportunities, vulnerabilities as well as challenges related to SDM. It also highlights how SDM can be used to solve the current limitations in legacy monitoring systems. The feasibility of the proposed SDM architecture is verified by using a testbed implementation.

Performance analysis of open-source Linux-based HIP implementations

Traditional Internet architecture allows a host and its location to be identified using only Internet Protocol (IP) address. Host Identity Protocol (HIP) separates the dual role of IP addresses as the locator and the identifier and introduces a Host Identity (HI) name space, based on a public key security infrastructure. This change allows applications to use HIs instead of IP addresses at the transport layer, hence offering secure host mobility and multihoming capabilities. This modification to traditional Internet architecture raises concerns from both industries and researchers as to what extent it will affect the ideal performance of a network. In this article, we offer a performance evaluation of two open-source Linux-based HIP implementations, HIP on Linux (HIPL) and OpenHIP. Performance is evaluated on throughput (TCP and UDP), jitter, and end-to-end latency. To account for a heterogeneous mix of network types, different network scenarios were set up on a real world testbed. Based on the outcome of the experiments, we highlight the limitations of each implementation as well as their suitable industrial applications. We further suggest possible modifications to improve the performance of each approach.

SDN based operator assisted offloading platform for multi-controller 5G networks

This paper presents an operator-assisted data offloading platform for 5G mobile networks by using Software Defined Networking (SDN). By enabling lateral communication between multiple SDN controllers, operators are able to perform the offloading process without the intervention of the user. Moreover, the offloading decision of proposed platform is based on accurate real time network conditions. The proposed mechanism is implemented on a testbed to verify feasibility and performance.