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Smart PRACH Jamming: A Serious Threat for 5G Campus Networks

J. R. Stegmann, M. Gundall, H. D. Schotten

TL;DR

A smart jamming attack on the Physical Random Access Channel of a 5G system is modeled and a practical implementation of the jammer on a testbed based on Open Air Interface (OAI) and Software Defined Radios (SDRs).

Abstract

Smart jamming attacks on cellular campus networks represent an enormous potential threat, especially in the industrial environment. In complex production processes, the disruption of a single wireless connected Cyber-Physical System (CPS) is enough to cause a large-scale failure. In this paper, a smart jamming attack on the Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) of a 5G system is modeled. This is followed by a practical implementation of the jammer on a testbed based on Open Air Interface (OAI) and Software Defined Radios (SDRs). It is shown that the designed jammer design can interfere a legitimate transmission of a PRACH preamble with a ratio of more than 99.9%. While less than one percent of the cell resources are interfered compared to broadband jamming. In addition, two different types of jamming signal spectra are compared in relation to their interference capacity. The developed attack can be re-implemented based on publicly available source code and Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware.

Smart PRACH Jamming: A Serious Threat for 5G Campus Networks

TL;DR

A smart jamming attack on the Physical Random Access Channel of a 5G system is modeled and a practical implementation of the jammer on a testbed based on Open Air Interface (OAI) and Software Defined Radios (SDRs).

Abstract

Smart jamming attacks on cellular campus networks represent an enormous potential threat, especially in the industrial environment. In complex production processes, the disruption of a single wireless connected Cyber-Physical System (CPS) is enough to cause a large-scale failure. In this paper, a smart jamming attack on the Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) of a 5G system is modeled. This is followed by a practical implementation of the jammer on a testbed based on Open Air Interface (OAI) and Software Defined Radios (SDRs). It is shown that the designed jammer design can interfere a legitimate transmission of a PRACH preamble with a ratio of more than 99.9%. While less than one percent of the cell resources are interfered compared to broadband jamming. In addition, two different types of jamming signal spectra are compared in relation to their interference capacity. The developed attack can be re-implemented based on publicly available source code and Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 20 sections, 11 equations, 5 figures, 3 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. Smart jamming
  4. Effectiveness Analysis
  5. Power efficiency
  6. Effort efficiency
  7. Efectiveness
  8. Motivation for Jamming
  9. PRACH jammer design
  10. Random Access Procedure
  11. Configuration
  12. zc sequences
  13. Jamming Spectra and Investigated Quantities
  14. Metrics
  15. Testbed and Implementation
  16. ...and 5 more sections

Figures (5)

  • Figure 1: Exemplary trajectory of a wirelessly controlled AGV within a 5G campus network from cell 1 (production) to cell 2 (warehouse).
  • Figure 2: Jamming effectiveness based on effort and power efficiencies.
  • Figure 3: 4-step contention-based Random Access Procedure
  • Figure 4: Smart jamming testbed consisting of three tower PCs, SDRs, and a reference clock.
  • Figure 5: Number of preambles transmitted by the and received by the .