Biblio

Advanced persistent threat (APT) attackers usually conduct a large number of network reconnaissance before a formal attack to discover exploitable vulnerabilities in the target network and system. The static configuration in traditional network systems provides a great advantage for adversaries to find network targets and launch attacks. To reduce the effectiveness of adversaries' continuous reconnaissance attacks, this paper develops a moving target defense (MTD) enhanced cyber deception defense system based on software-defined networks (SDN). The system uses virtual network topology to confuse the target network and system information collected by adversaries. Also Besides, it uses IP address randomization to increase the dynamics of network deception to enhance its defense effectiveness. Finally, we implemented the system prototype and evaluated it. In a configuration where the virtual network topology scale is three network segments, and the address conversion cycle is 30 seconds, this system delayed the adversaries' discovery of vulnerable hosts by an average of seven times, reducing the probability of adversaries successfully attacking vulnerable hosts by 83%. At the same time, the increased system overhead is basically within 10%.