European 5G Security in the Wild: Reality versus Expectations

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the real-world deployment of 5G security features in European networks, revealing gaps between standards and practice, and highlighting ongoing vulnerabilities inherited from 4G during the migration to 5G.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of current 5G security implementations in Europe, comparing them with Chinese deployments and identifying remaining vulnerabilities.

Findings

Many 5G security features are not fully implemented in European networks.

European 5G networks remain vulnerable to some 4G attacks.

Deployment of security features is still in progress, affecting security during migration.

Abstract

5G cellular systems are slowly being deployed worldwide delivering the promised unprecedented levels of throughput and latency to hundreds of millions of users. At such scale security is crucial, and consequently, the 5G standard includes a new series of features to improve the security of its predecessors (i.e., 3G and 4G). In this work, we evaluate the actual deployment in practice of the promised 5G security features by analysing current commercial 5G networks from several European operators. By collecting 5G signalling traffic in the wild in several cities in Spain, we i) fact-check which 5G security enhancements are actually implemented in current deployments, ii) provide a rich overview of the implementation status of each 5G security feature in a wide range of 5G commercial networks in Europe and compare it with previous results in China, iii) analyse the implications of optional features not being deployed, and iv) discuss on the still remaining 4G-inherited vulnerabilities. Our results show that in European 5G commercial networks, the deployment of the 5G security features is still on the works. This is well aligned with results previously reported from China [16] and keeps these networks vulnerable to some 4G attacks, during their migration period from 4G to 5G.