NSF Convergence Accelerator Track G: Combating Vulnerability and Unawareness in 5G Network Security

Reliable and high-rate 5G wireless access has become a global necessity; however, the US has fallen behind in wireless leadership, lacking major radio access network (RAN) or cellular network manufacturers. Furthermore, cellular networks have not been designed for mission-critical communications and have exposed several security vulnerabilities. Consequently, the Department of Defense (DoD) faces challenges in using commercial off-the-shelf 5G products and commercial networks for US military operations.

The Zero Trust X (ZTX) team, a consortium of interdisciplinary experts in the field of 5G and security, will research and develop a family of security solutions to establish a Zero Trust Chain (ZTC) that enables end-to-end security and protection for reliable use of 5G networks for DoD use cases. The proposed effort will generate knowledge and research outcomes tailored for use by US industry and DoD.

Additionally, the project will train a diverse team of students in research and provide open-source software that facilitates portability, reproducibility, and integration with other Track G solutions of this program.

The project's specific goal is to develop the ZTC software that enables military squads to securely share situational awareness in their operations using high-performance, yet often untrusted, 5G networks. The software solution leverages the flexibility of the 5G standard and implements innovative security solutions at different network nodes and layers to empower DoD operators to detect malicious entities in near-real time and establish communication mechanisms to prevent access to or control over DoD traffic.

Specifically, through minimal cooperation with 5G network operators, part of the ZTC solution leverages Open-RAN (O-RAN) and 5G core-centric approaches for practical threat monitoring and mitigation. This is complemented by device-centric security enhancements to ensure that DoD devices also implement their own layer of security and do not solely depend on the security protocols of the network provider.

Six key features set ZTC apart from other solutions: (i) it builds on the Open Artificial Intelligence Cellular (OAIC) platform for developing O-RAN threat monitoring and mitigation through RAN Intelligent Controllers; (ii) it offers end-to-end secure slicing across the 5G RAN and Core; (iii) it detects threats at user devices in near-real time; (iv) it protects communication through innovation at the application layer rather than modifying existing 5G physical layer protocols and algorithms; (v) it ensures location privacy and resiliency to unknown/unanticipated denial of service (DoS) attacks; and (vi) it does not require modifications to public 5G/O-RAN networks and standards, and only requires installation of low-overhead software modules on 5G user devices and cooperative 5G networks. The ZTX team's work is applicable to commercial and military 5G communication networks and to O-RAN.

The ZTX team will implement and experimentally evaluate the proposed ZTC initially on a laboratory-scale integrated 5G/O-RAN testbed, and subsequently on other available testbeds to prepare for commercial transition. The team will apply Convergence Accelerator fundamentals to foster partnerships and to develop a sustainability model with an impact extending well beyond Phase 2 of the program.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.