Security Challenges of Small Cell as a Service in Virtualized Mobile Edge Computing Environments
Research on next-generation 5G wireless networks is currently attracting a lot of attention in both academia and industry. While 5G development and standardization activities are still at their early stage, it is widely acknowledged that 5G systems are go
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School of Computing and Engineering, University of West London, London, UK [email protected] 2 Secure and Dependable Software Systems Research Cluster, School of Computing, Engineering, and Mathematics, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK {e.panaousis,h.mouratidis}@brighton.ac.uk
Abstract. Research on next-generation 5G wireless networks is currently attracting a lot of attention in both academia and industry. While 5G development and standardization activities are still at their early stage, it is widely acknowledged that 5G systems are going to extensively rely on dense small cell deployments, which would exploit infrastructure and network functions virtualization (NFV), and push the network intelligence towards network edges by embracing the concept of mobile edge computing (MEC). As security will be a fundamental enabling factor of small cell as a service (SCaaS) in 5G networks, we present the most prominent threats and vulnerabilities against a broad range of targets. As far as the related work is concerned, to the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to investigate security challenges at the intersection of SCaaS, NFV, and MEC. It is also the first paper that proposes a set of criteria to facilitate a clear and effective taxonomy of security challenges of main elements of 5G networks. Our analysis can serve as a staring point towards the development of appropriate 5G security solutions. These will have crucial effect on legal and regulatory frameworks as well as on decisions of businesses, governments, and end-users. Keywords: Security · Small cell as a service · Network functions virtualization · Mobile edge computing · 5G
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Introduction
Rapid advances in the industry of handheld devices and mobile applications has fuelled the penetration of interactive and ubiquitous web-based services into almost every aspect of our lives. At the same time, users expect almost zero-delay and infinite-capacity experience. However, current 4G technologies reveal their c IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2016 Published by Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016. All Rights Reserved S. Foresti and J. Lopez (Eds.): WISTP 2016, LNCS 9895, pp. 70–84, 2016. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-45931-8 5
Security Challenges of SCaaS in Virtualized MEC Environments
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inherent limitations, as discussed in [1]. This is true, for both human-to-human and machine-to-machine (M2M) communications [2,3]. Both will require radically different architectural design, network protocols, and business models. To achieve that, researchers are working towards the next-generation 5G wireless networks aiming to offer high-speed and personalized services to both humans and machines, when and where needed [4]. To support highly dense areas where a vast number of users want to access the network infrastructure, deployment of small cells (SCs) is envisioned. These can co-operate with traditional macro cells, to provide high levels of user experience [5,6]. SCs will play a significant role in 5G networks, whic
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