Securing software defined wireless networks

Software defined wireless networking (SDWN) is a new paradigm of wireless networking, physically separating the data and control planes of various elements in the wireless infrastructure. Similar to its wired counterpart, SDWN is expected to introduce a wide range of benefits to the operation and management of wireless networks. Security is always important to any network. On one hand, SDWN enables new security mechanisms. On the other hand, some new threats are introduced due to the separation of the control and data planes and the introduction of the logically centralized controller. In this article, we discuss its security threat vectors as well as design issues in making it secure. Also, we analyze the security requirements of SDWN, and then summarize the security attacks and countermeasures in this area and suggest some future research directions.