Foundation Projects

Outstanding Research in Digital Development: University of Newcastle

The University of Newcastle's Advanced Cyber Security Engineering Research Centre (ACSRC)

The University of Newcastle's Advanced Cyber Security Engineering Research Centre (ACSRC) is a recipient of a 2024 ISIF Asia award for Outstanding Research in Digital Development for their work on Software Defined Networking (SDN) and cybersecurity. They received their award on September 4, 2024, at the APNIC 58 Conference in Wellington, New Zealand.

Each awardee received travel support (if they are based outside New Zealand) to attend the conference and 5,000 USD to assist with their work.

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is disruptive networking technology which adopts a centralized framework to facilitate fine-grained network management. Essentially, it allows Network Operators more options in terms of monitoring, automating and configuring their networks.

However, there are also new security considerations involved.

Research into security in SDN is still in its infancy in the Asia Pacific region. This project explored the design and development of techniques for detecting attacks on SDN switches, and enforcing security appropriate security policies on demand.

The University of Newcastle team implemented the proposed techniques and validated against different attacks on the switches. In particular, they developed a Switch Security Application (SSA) for SDN Controllers for detecting attacks on the switches.

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