A Security Architecture for 5G Networks

• Main Authors: Ghada Arfaoui, Pascal Bisson, Rolf Blom, Ravishankar Borgaonkar, Hakan Englund, Edith Felix, Felix Klaedtke, Prajwol Kumar Nakarmi, Mats Naslund, Piers O'Hanlon, Juri Papay, Jani Suomalainen, Mike Surridge, Jean-Philippe Wary, Alexander Zahariev
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2018-01-01
• Series: IEEE Access
• Subjects: Telecommunication networks; 5G; security; architecture
• Online Access: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8340149/

5G networks will provide opportunities for the creation of new services, for new business models, and for new players to enter the mobile market. The networks will support efficient and cost-effective launch of a multitude of services, tailored for different vertical markets having varying service and security requirements, and involving a large number of actors. Key technology concepts are network slicing and network softwarization, including network function virtualization and software-defined networking. The presented security architecture builds upon concepts from the 3G and 4G security architectures but extends and enhances them to cover the new 5G environment. It comprises a toolbox for security relevant modeling of the systems, a set of security design principles, and a set of security functions and mechanisms to implement the security controls needed to achieve stated security objectives. In a smart city use case setting, we illustrate its utility; we examine the high-level security aspects stemming from the deployment of a large number of IoT devices and network softwarization.