Title

Southbound API management plane traffic for provisioning and configuring virtual network elements within the SDN infrastructure must traverse an out-of-band path or be encrypted using a using a FIPS-validated cryptographic module. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Management and orchestration systems within the SDN framework instantiate, deploy, and configure network elements within the SDN infrastructure. These systems also define the virtual network topology by specifying the connectivity between the network elements and the workloads, both virtual and physical. If a hypervisor host within the SDN infrastructure were to receive fictitious information from a rogue management or orchestration system, the virtual network topology could be altered by deploying rogue network elements to create non-optimized network paths, resulting in inefficient application and business processes. By altering the network topology, the attacker would have the ability to force traffic to bypass security controls. Spoofed management plane traffic generated by a rogue management system could result in a denial-of-service attack on the hypervisor hosts, exhausting the computing resources and disrupting workload processing or even creating a network outage. Hence, it is imperative that all SDN management plane traffic is secured by encrypting the traffic or deploying an out-of-band network for this traffic to traverse.

Check Content

Determine if the southbound API management plane traffic traverses an out-of-band path. If not, verify that the southbound API management plane traffic is encrypted using a using a FIPS-validated cryptographic module. If the southbound API management plane traffic does not traverse an out-of-band path or is not encrypted using a using a FIPS-validated cryptographic module, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Deploy an out-of-band network to provision paths between management systems, orchestrations systems, and all hypervisor hosts that compose the SDN infrastructure to provide transport for southbound API management plane traffic. An alternative is to encrypt all southbound API management plane traffic using a FIPS-validated cryptographic module. Implement a cryptographic module that has a validation certification and is listed on the NIST Cryptographic Module Validation Program's (CMVP) validation list.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-87737r1_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-73085

Group Title: NET-SDN-007

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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