SDN-Enabled IoT Security Frameworks—A Review of Existing Challenges

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript is interesting and provides a comprehensive review of how SDN is used to improve IoT security. They analysed and summarized existing research, and identified key challenges and future research directions in the implementation of SDN to IoT security.

 It is clear and well-structured; the methodology is solid and appropriate and the findings were critically and sufficiently presented. The identification of key challenges such as scalability, real-world validation, and dataset limitations is important and adds value to the paper. The suggestion to explore hybrid architectures such as cloud, edge, and fog computing is insightful and beneficial to improving security performance. Furthermore, the demand for more robust datasets and adaptive models such as zero-trust and federated learning is timely and necessary for advancing IoT security.

 

Although the manuscript provides a valuable overview of SDN-integrated IoT security frameworks and highlights critical research gaps, some aspects must be fixed to enhance quality.

1.       The authors should carefully examine the manuscript and ensure that the formatting is uniform and consistent especially, the tables.

 

2.       The authors add the manuscript’s conclusion section.

Author Response

Please refer the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This comprehensive systematic review examines the integration of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) with IoT security frameworks, analyzing recent advancements in authentication mechanisms, access control techniques, and machine learning-based threat detection systems. The paper is well-written but needs major revisions before acceptance.

·       Did the author use any systematic way to conduct the review, or were the studies chosen randomly? If the authors used some systemic way, such as kitchen-ham, it should be discussed with proper key search terms. If not, then how would the authors justify the missing papers?

·       There should be a table with complete research questions and search key terms separating each question.

·       The major focus of this review seems to be (SDN) with IoT security frameworks, the why authors compared the studies based on machine learning and deep learning.

·       Why do authors consider surveys to be too limited for comparison? There should be at least ten studies in the comparison table. This would enhance the difference between this review and existing surveys.

·       If the authors also aim to focus on machine learning-based approaches in the security context, it must be highlighted in the abstract and introduction as well as require an explicit subsection.

·       The authors do not write about the SDN and IoT Security framework before presenting their contributions. Please provide some necessary information regarding SDNs for security.

·       The security frameworks are enough but poorly presented in Figure 2. The author should use some standard style of presentation. The same presentation issues appear in Figures 3 and 4. Table 3 is going beyond the width of the article.

·       Figure 6 of the dataset must be improved. Overall, figures need clarity and better presentation.

 

·       There should be an explicit subsection of challenges in the manuscript regarding (SDN) with IoT security frameworks. This would be a good path for novice researchers.

Relevant references can be added such as Shafique, A., Mehmood, A., Alawida, M. et al. Lightweight image encryption scheme for IoT environment and machine learning-driven robust S-box selection. Telecommun Syst 88, 17 (2025) 

Author Response

Please refer the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have revised the article according to the feedback.