ZKPAUTH: An Authentication Scheme Based Zero-Knowledge Proof for Software Defined Network

To secure the communication between the control and data plane devices and keep the communication channel in software defined network (SDN) immune against network attacks. OpenFlow recommends configuring the transport layer security (TLS). Unfortunately, some OpenFlow devices don’t adopt TLS. In this case, SDN needs a robust network authentication protocol to keep the communication within SDN secured. In this paper, we proposed ZKPAUTH, An Authentication Scheme based on Zero-Knowledge Proof to enforce an authentication between the controller and the hosts before establishing the communication. The controller and the hosts take help of the nonce distribution center (NDC) that maintains the authentication between them. We implemented the security of the ZKPAUTH using AVISPA tool. The result of AVISPA shows that the ZKPAUTH is safe against replay and MITM attacks. The security analysis of ZKPAUTH is discussed and proved that ZKPAUTH is efficient and secure against DoS and host impersonation attack.