SDN switches not hard to compromise, researcher says

alphadogg writes: Software-defined switches hold a lot of promise for network operators, but new research due to be presented at Black Hat will show that security measures haven't quite caught up yet. Gregory Pickett, founder of the Chicago-based security firm Hellfire Security, has developed several attacks against network switches that use Onie, the Linux-based Open Network Install Environment that competes with OpenDaylight. Being able to exploit the vulnerability to put malware on SDN switches would have full visibility into all of the traffic running through the switch, enabling large-scale spying.