An Evidence Theory based Approach in Detecting Malicious Controller in the Multi-Controller Software-defined Internet of Things Network

Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the modern technologies in the present era in which many of the tools and things surrounding us are connected to internet for various usages. Software defined networks (SDNs), due to having central control and programming capability, introduce numerous opportunities to the network infrastructure and provide potential solutions to overcome such challenges. A control plane with extremely powerful and high accessibility is a key prerequisite of any SDN which ensures reliability. Along with the growth of networks, an increase in the number of switches, and variety of traffic load, SDNs with central controller are facing problems. Controller is a key part of SDN, so attackers focus on it: security issues have become one of the most challenging issues for network managers. In this paper, to increase trust among controllers and not to allow a malicious controller in the network, Dempster-Shafer Theory has been used. Therefore, every controller will be evaluated by its neighboring controllers, the views of neighboring controllers will be combined, and the final decision will be made on whether the controller is malicious or not. The simulation results show that using Dempster-Shafer Theory leads to gaining better results with higher correctness.