Poster: Developing an O-RAN Security Test Lab
Sotiris Michaelides, David Rupprecht, Katharina Kohls
TL;DR
ORAN's openness and disaggregation introduce security risks not yet validated in practice. The authors propose a minimal, cost-conscious ORAN security test lab focused on architectural openness and ML-related threats, leveraging open-source stacks such as OAI, Free5GC, and FlexRIC, and targeting the 7.2x open-front-haul interface with a near-real-time RIC. The contribution includes a deployment blueprint, component selections, deployment scenarios, and a candid discussion of challenges like incomplete software and hardware interoperability. This work enables practical, real-world security analyses of ORAN in academic and research settings, advancing safer deployment and evaluation of ORAN systems.
Abstract
Open Radio Access Networks (ORAN) is a new architectural approach, having been proposed only a few years ago, and it is an expansion of the current Next Generation Radio Access Networks (NG-RAN) of 5G. ORAN aims to break this closed RAN market that is controlled by a handful of vendors, by implementing open interfaces between the different Radio Access Networks (RAN) components, and by introducing modern technologies to the RAN like machine learning, virtualization, and disaggregation. However, the architectural design of ORAN was recently causing concerns and debates about its security, which is considered one of its major drawbacks. Several theoretical risk analyses related to ORAN have been conducted, but to the best of our knowledge, not even a single practical one has been performed yet. In this poster, we discuss and propose a way for a minimal, future-proof deployment of an ORAN 5G network, able to accommodate various hands-on security analyses for its different elements.