Software-defined networking is considered a promising new paradigm, enabling more reliable and formally verifiable communication networks. However, this paper shows that the separation of the control plane from the data plane, which lies at the heart of Software-Defined Networks (SDNs), can be exploited for covert channels based on SDN Teleportation, even when the data planes are physically disconnected. This paper describes the theoretical model and design of our covert timing channel based on SDN Teleportation. We implement our covert channel using a popular SDN switch, Open vSwitch, and a popular SDN controller, ONOS. Our evaluation of the prototype shows that even under load at the controller, throughput rates of 20 bits per second are possible, with a communication accuracy of approximately 90\%. We also discuss techniques to increase the throughput further.

翻译：软件定义网络被认为是一种有前景的新范式，能够实现更可靠且可形式化验证的通信网络。然而，本文表明，即使数据平面在物理上断开连接，作为软件定义网络核心的控制平面与数据平面分离，仍可被利用来基于SDN传送技术构建隐蔽信道。本文描述了基于SDN传送技术的隐蔽定时信道的理论模型与设计。我们使用流行的SDN交换机Open vSwitch和流行的SDN控制器ONOS实现了该隐蔽信道。对原型的评估表明，即使在控制器负载下，也能实现每秒20比特的吞吐率，通信准确率约为90%。我们还讨论了进一步提高吞吐率的技术。