A design flaw discovered in the architecture of 5G network slicing can allow malicious actors to access potentially sensitive data and launch denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, mobile network security company AdaptiveMobile Security warned this week.
5G network slicing enables operators to provide different amounts of resources to different types of traffic — based on their needs — by dividing the same physical network infrastructure into distinct virtual blocks. For example, the amount of resources needed by consumers for communications and entertainment can be different from the resources required by factories for their IoT devices, or those required for automotive applications, or healthcare systems.
AdaptiveMobile Security discovered that the architecture of 5G network slicing has a serious flaw that can expose the customers of mobile operators to various types of attacks.
“In its research, AdaptiveMobile Security examined 5G core networks that contain both shared and dedicated network functions, revealing that when a network has these ‘hybrid’ network functions that support several slices there is a lack of mapping between the application and transport layers identities,” AdaptiveMobile explained. “This flaw in the industry standards has the impact of creating an opportunity for an attacker to access data and launch denial of service attacks across multiple slices if they have access to the 5G Service Based Architecture.”
“For example, a hacker compromising an edge network function connected to the operator’s service based architecture could exploit this flaw in the design of network slicing standards to have access to both the operator’s core network and the network slices for other enterprises,” the company added.
Specifically, an attacker could exploit the vulnerability to track users’ location, disrupt network functions, and access network functions and related information from another block.
AdaptiveMobile Security has reported its findings to the GSMA, which represents the interests of mobile network operators worldwide, to allow impacted organizations to take measures before 5G network slicing becomes more widely used.
The cybersecurity firm says the risk of attacks is currently low due to the limited number of operators that use network slicing.
AdaptiveMobile Security has published a paper detailing its findings.
Related: Vulnerabilities in Standalone 5G Networks Expose Users to Attacks
Related: Securing a Connected Future: 5G and IoT Security
Related: 5G Security Risk vs. Reward
Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
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