Abstract
Security issues in a Software Defined Network (SDN) environment like system vulnerabilities and intrusion attempts can pose a security risk for multi-tenant network managed by SDN. In this research work, Moving target defense (MTD) technique based on shuffle strategy -port hopping has been employed to increase the difficulty for the attacker trying to exploit the cloud network. Our research work MASON, considers the problem of multi-stage attacks in a network managed using SDN. SDN controller can be used to dynamically reconfigure the network and render attacker's knowledge in multi-stage attacks redundant. We have used a threat score based on vulnerability information and intrusion attempts to identify Virtual Machines (VMs) in systems with high-security risk and implement MTD countermeasures port hopping to assess threat score reduction in a cloud network.