A 5G campus network is a 5G network for the users affiliated with the campus organization, e.g., an industrial campus, covering a prescribed geographical area. A 5G campus network can operate as a so-called 5G non-standalone (NSA) network (which requires 4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE) spectrum access) or as a 5G standalone (SA) network (without 4G LTE spectrum access). 5G campus networks are envisioned to enable new use cases, which require cyclic delay-sensitive industrial communication, such as robot control. We design a rigorous testbed for measuring the one-way packet delays between a 5G end device via a radio access network (RAN) to a packet core with sub-microsecond precision as well as for measuring the packet core delay with nanosecond precision. With our testbed design, we conduct detailed measurements of the one-way download (downstream, i.e., core to end device) as well as one-way upload (upstream, i.e., end device to core) packet delays and losses for both 5G SA and 5G NSA hardware and network operation. We also measure the corresponding 5G SA and 5G NSA packet core processing delays for download and upload. We find that typically 95% of the SA download packet delays are in the range from 4–10 ms, indicating a fairly wide spread of the packet delays. Also, existing packet core implementations regularly incur packet processing latencies up to 0.4 ms, with outliers above one millisecond. Our measurement results inform the further development and refinement of 5G SA and 5G NSA campus networks for industrial use cases. We make the measurement data traces publicly available as the IEEE DataPort 5G Campus Networks: Measurement Traces dataset (DOI 10.21227/xe3c-e968).

/pdf/5g-campus-networks-a-first-measurement-study-51v05sz56d.pdf

5G Campus Networks: A First Measurement Study

5G is the fifth-generation cellular network satisfying the requirements IMT-2020 (International Mobile Telecommunications-2020) of the International Telecommunication Union. Mobile network operators started using it worldwide in 2019. Generally, 5G achieves exceptionally high values of performance parameters of access and transmission. The application of edge servers has been proposed to facilitate implementing such requirements of 5G, resulting in 5G MEC (Multi-access Edge Computing) technology. Moreover, to optimize services for specific business applications, the concept of 5G vertical industries has been proposed. In this article, we study how the application of the MEC technology affects the functioning of 5G MEC-based services. We consider twelve representative vertical industries of 5G MEC by presenting their essential characteristics, threats, vulnerabilities, and known attacks. Furthermore, we analyze their functional properties, give efficiency patterns and identify the effect of applying the MEC technology in 5G on the resultant network’s quality parameters to determine the expected security requirements. As a result of the research, we identify the impact of classified threats on the 5G empowered vertical industries and identify the most sensitive cases to focus on their protection against network attacks in the first place.

/pdf/verticals-in-5g-mec-use-cases-and-security-challenges-4j26qu9lel.pdf

Verticals in 5G MEC-Use Cases and Security Challenges

MEC technology provides a distributed computing environment in 5G mobile networks for application and service hosting. It allows customers with different requirements and professional competencies to use the services offered by external suppliers. We consider a service access control framework on 5G MEC networks that is efficient, flexible, and user-friendly. Its central element is the MEC Enabler, which handles AAA requests for stakeholders accessing services hosted on the edge servers. The JSON Web Token (JWT) open standard is a suitable tool for the MEC Enabler to manage access control credentials and transfer them securely between parties. In this paper, in the context of access control, we propose the token reference pattern called JSON MEC Access Token (JMAT) and analyze the effectiveness of its available protection methods in compliance with the standard requirements of MEC-hosted services in 5G networks.

Token-Based Authentication Framework for 5G MEC Mobile Networks

Multi-Access or Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is being deployed by 4G/5G operators to provide computational services at lower latencies. Federating MECs across operators expands capability, capacity, and coverage but gives rise to two issues for continuous service during roaming without re-authentication&#x2014;third-party authentication and application mobility. In this work, we propose a Federated State transfer and 3rd-party Authentication (FS3A) mechanism that uses a transparent proxy to transfer the information of both authentication and application state across operators to resolve these issues. The FS3A proxy is kept transparent with virtual counterparts to avoid any changes to existing MEC and cellular architectures. FS3A provides users with a token which, when authenticated by an MEC, can be reused across operators for faster authentication. Prefetching of subscription and state is also proposed to further reduce authentication and application mobility latencies. We evaluated FS3A on an OpenAirInterface (OAI)-based testbed and the results show that token reuse and subscription prefetching reduce the authentication latency by 53&#x2013;65&#x0025;, compared to complete re-authentication, while state prefetching reduces application mobility latency by 51&#x2013;91&#x0025;, compared to no prefetching. Overall, FS3A reduces the service interruption time by 33&#x0025;, compared to no token reuse and prefetching. 

Federated 3GPP Mobile Edge Computing Systems: A Transparent Proxy for Third Party Authentication With Application Mobility Support

Cryptocurrencies, Electronic Securities, Security Token Offerings, Non Fungible Tokens: New Legal Regulations for “Crypto Securities” and Implications for Issuers and Investor and Consumer Protection

The currently developed 5G networks using MEC technology (5G MEC) allow for the harmonious cooperation of many areas of the economy (called the vertical industries) within an integrated information network Providing the necessary security in such a complex configuration of business partners requires the design of consistent and effective security architecture In this paper, we present a new concept of an access control architecture for the 5G MEC network in line with the 5G network model and MEC architecture proposed by international standardization organizations We give an overview of the high-level security architecture of 5G MEC networks, which provides security solutions for the network’s components and establishes secure access to all cooperating entities Next, we introduce the MEC Enabler, a new network’s module, which manages security credentials required to access resources of MEC-hosted services We consider a series of several use cases with increasing demands on network data resources and computing power Finally, we present a sample protocol diagram for gaining access to resources (authentication in a service using MEC technology) in our access control architecture

New Security Architecture of Access Control in 5G MEC

Modern and future services require ultra-reliable mobile connections with high bandwidth parameters and proper security protection. It is possible to ensure such conditions by provisioning services in the Multi-Access Edge Computing system integrated with fifth-generation mobile networks. However, the main challenge in the mentioned architecture is providing a secure service migration with all related data and security requirements to another edge computing host area when the user changes its physical location. This article aims to present the state of research on the migration of the security context between service instances in Edge/MEC servers, specify steps of the migration procedure, and identify new security challenges inspired by use cases of 5G vertical industries. For this purpose, the analysis of the security context’s structure and basic concept of the Security Service Level Agreement was performed and presented in the document. Next, a further investigation of the security context was conducted, including requirements for its reliable migration between edge serves instances. The study mainly focused on crucial migration challenges and possible solutions to resolve them. Finally, the authors presented how the proposed solution can be used to protect 5G vertical industries services based on several mobile use cases.

https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/11/21/3512/pdf?version=1667875179

Security Context Migration in MEC: Challenges and Use Cases

Detecting Personal Protective Equipment in images and video streams is a relevant problem in ensuring the safety of construction workers. In this contribution, an architecture enabling live image recognition of such equipment is proposed. The solution is deployable in two settings – edge-cloud and edge-only. The system was tested on an active construction site, as a part of a larger scenario, within the scope of the ASSIST-IoT H2020 project. To determine the feasibility of the edge-only variant, a model for counting people wearing safety helmets was developed using the YOLOX method. It was found that an edge-only deployment is possible for this use case, given the hardware infrastructure available on site. In the preliminary evaluation, several important observations were made, that are crucial to the further development and deployment of the system. Future work will include an in-depth investigation of performance aspects of the two architecture variants.

Wojciech Niewolski

Papers

Verticals in 5G MEC-Use Cases and Security Challenges

Token-Based Authentication Framework for 5G MEC Mobile Networks

New Security Architecture of Access Control in 5G MEC

Security Context Migration in MEC: Challenges and Use Cases

Towards Edge-Cloud Architectures for Personal Protective Equipment Detection