A fine-grained telemetry stream for security services in 5G open radio access networks

Haohuang Wen, Phillip A. Porras, Vinod Yegneswaran, Zhiqiang Lin

Abstract: The Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) is an emerging paradigm for developing the next-generation radio access network (RAN) for 5G and beyond. Inspired by the principles from software-defined networks (SDNs), the key innovation of O-RAN is the disaggregation of control logic from the network data plane, by using a centralized RAN intelligent controller (RIC), with customized xApps and service models. The O-RAN's novel design transforms the traditional monolithic network infrastructure into an open, programmable, and interoperable RAN. These distinctive features make O-RAN ideal for deploying extensible security services against a wide range of prevalent threat vectors (e.g., malicious transmitters that spoof, interfere, or flood communications between mobile devices and the 5G RAN), which can compromise the security, privacy, and availability of mobile devices and the network itself, at very low cost. Unfortunately, we find that the existing exemplar xApp models of O-RAN and the underlying telemetry streams that drive these applications are insufficient for developing robust security countermeasures. In this paper, we propose MobiFlow, a fine-grained telemetry stream tailored for security analysis on O-RAN. We envision MobiFlow as an enabling building block upon which novel 5G services can be implemented, offering device and RAN-specific run-time security monitoring, intelligent RAN control, and security-focused AI/ML assisted applications.