A critical (CVSS 9.8) vulnerability has been disclosed in the “OpenFlow” Software-Defined Networking (SDN) controller, a popular open-source component used in many enterprise and datacenter network fabrics. The flaw allows an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass authentication and gain full administrative control of the SDN controller.
Business Impact
This is a catastrophic network infrastructure vulnerability. The SDN controller is the “brain” of the entire network. An attacker who controls it can silently intercept, redirect, or monitor all network traffic, bypass all firewalls and segmentation, and gain access to every connected system.
Why It Happened
The vulnerability is an authentication bypass in the controller’s REST API, allowing attackers to send malicious, unauthenticated requests that are processed as if they came from an administrator.
Recommended Executive Action
Direct your network engineering team to patch all OpenFlow-based SDN controllers immediately. Ensure that the management interfaces for all network infrastructure (controllers, switches, firewalls) are on a segregated, secure management network, never exposed to the internet or internal user networks.
Hashtags: #SDN #NetworkSecurity #Vulnerability #RCE #OpenFlow #CyberSecurity #PatchNow #InfoSec #CVE