Virtual switches are a crucial component of SDN-based cloud systems, enabling the interconnection of virtual machines in a flexible and “software-defined” manner. This paper raises the alarm on the security implications of virtual switches. In particular, we show that virtual switches not only increase the attack surface of the cloud, but virtual switch vulnerabilities can also lead to attacks of much higher impact compared to traditional switches. We present a systematic security analysis and identify four design decisions which introduce vulnerabilities. Our findings motivate us to revisit existing threat models for SDN-based cloud setups, and introduce a new attacker model for SDN-based cloud systems using virtual switches. @en

Virtual switches are a crucial component of cloud operating systems that interconnect virtual machines in a flexible manner. They implement complex network protocol parsing in the unified packet parser - parsing all supported packet header fields in a single pass - and are commonly co-located with the virtualization layer. We find that this significantly reduces the barrier for low-budget attackers to launch high impact attacks in the cloud. This leads us to introduce the virtual switch attacker model for packet-parsing, in short the vAMP attack. Using OpenStack, a cloud operating system, and Open vSwitch, a virtual switch, we demonstrate how current virtual switch designs cannot withstand vAMP. Thereby giving a weak attacker full control of the cloud in a matter of minutes

The vAMP Attack: Taking Control of Cloud Systems via the Unified Packet Parser | Request PDF. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320745119_The_vAMP_Attack_Taking_Control_of_Cloud_Systems_via_the_Unified_Packet_Parser [accessed Mar 14 2018].@en