Security and Privacy Issues in Network Function Virtualization: A Review from Architectural Perspective
Bilal Zahran, Naveed Ahmed, Abdel Rahman Alzoubaidi, Md Asri Ngadi · International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications · 2024
Network Function Virtualization (NFV) delivers numerous benefits to customers since it is a cost-effective evolution of legacy networks, allowing for rapid network augmentation and extension at a low cost as network functions are virtualized. However, on the other hand, there is a big security concern for NFV users because of shared infrastructure. There are many studies in the literature that report various NFV security threats. In this paper, we categorize these threats according to the alignment of NFV architecture and delineate a taxonomy for NFV security threats. This work provides detailed information about security threats, causes, and countermeasures to reduce the security vulnerabilities of NFV. We believe that the study of NFV security threats from an architectural perspective is a step forward for better insight into these threats since the roots of many NFV threats are connected to their architecture. We also present how NFV design should be revamped to mitigate NFV security threats, something that is a recent trend in this area. Finally, we highlight future research directions to provide enhanced security for future NFV-based networks.