Name
Title | ||
|---|---|---|
Toward securing the control plane of 5G mobile networks against DoS threats: Attack scenarios and promising solutions |
Abstract | ||
|---|---|---|
With the advent of the fifth generation (5G) technology, a plethora of revolutionary applications can now be supported. This tremendous growth will be certainly accompanied by a wider and fast-evolving security threat landscape, especially when the potential of massive devices connectivity will be fully unleashed. In this paper, we outline the security challenges faced by the 5G radio access network (5G-RAN) control plane as a result of the functional and architectural enhancements made at the radio resource control (RRC) protocol layer. We correspondingly analyze the dynamics of the new 5G RRC three-states model for a machine-type traffic pattern under an attack-free situation. Afterwards, we introduce and describe two RRC-based denial of service (DoS) attacks threatening the 5G-RAN resources availability. In the first threat scenario, the attacker maliciously manipulates the timing of state transitions in an attempt to overload the control plane. The second attack can be carried out through faking huge on-demand system information requests to prevent legitimate consumers from access to the cell and cause failed and interrupted 5G mobile services. Through numerical simulations, we measure the potential impact of these attacks on both 5G devices using the collision probability along with the access delay metrics, and on the critical gNB-centralized unit using the signaling overhead and the resource occupancy time metrics. Our observations reveal that both attacks can have disastrous effects on network stability and resiliency. Finally, some promising solutions are listed, with a special emphasis on injecting randomness into system parameters to complicate the task of designing such DoS attacks. |
Year | DOI | Venue |
|---|---|---|
2021 | 10.1016/j.jisa.2021.102943 | Journal of Information Security and Applications |
Keywords | DocType | Volume |
5G networks,Security flaws,Radio resource control,System information block,DoS attack | Journal | 61 |
ISSN | Citations | PageRank |
2214-2126 | 0 | 0.34 |
References | Authors | |
0 | 3 | |
Name | Order | Citations | PageRank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raja Ettiane | 1 | 0 | 0.68 |
| Abdelaali Chaoub | 2 | 11 | 3.66 |
| Rachid Elkouch | 3 | 0 | 0.34 |