Following its formal launch in early 2022, the 5G Security Test Bed has completed its inaugural round of tests, with successful results. Using its private 5G network and testing facilities, the 5G STB assessed and verified the efficacy of key 5G network security recommendations made by the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) VII.
Access the full technical report, highlights summary, and one-pager.
Specifically, CSRIC’s Working Group 2 (WG2, “Managing Security Risk in the Transition to 5G”) made several recommendations to improve security for traffic transmitted over non-standalone (NSA) networks, where the 5G network is built over a 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) core to support both types of traffic. Because 5G NSA networks are built with both 4G and 5G components, CSRIC’s recommendations aim to ensure 4G networks’ existing vulnerabilities do not carry over to 5G wireless technologies.
The Test Bed executed three test cases to validate these recommendations. The tests validated that when the recommendations are implemented, data from consumers, governments, and enterprises is more secure and not subject to tampering.
The Technical Report includes the full technical details of the tests, their execution, and results. The Highlights Summary is a shorter paper highlighting the key points of the main paper and is meant for non-technical audiences who are interested in some level of detail. The One-Pager provides a very high-level summary of the test cases and their applications.