A Novel Authentication Protocol for 5G gNodeBs in Service Migration Scenarios of MEC
- Post by: Pasika Ranaweera, Awaneesh Kumar Yadav, Madhusanka Liyanage and Anca Delia Jurcut
- January 30, 2025
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Edge computing paradigms were an expedient innovation for elevating the contemporary standards of mobile and Internet networks. As specified in Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) standardization, edge computing serviceable infrastructures are running on virtualization technologies to provide dynamic and flexible service instances. Since the inception and operation of the services are executing at the edge level gNodeBs (gNBs), migration of services between gNBs is an imminent occurrence in edge computing that is contriving challenges to its feasible deployment. Security and service level latency requirements are vital parameters for such service migration operations conducted through gNB to gNB (g2g) connecting channels. In this paper, our focus is to ensure identity verification among the parties involved in a service migration through authentication and to secure the migrating content through a robust g2g channel establishment. Our proposed authentication protocol was designed in accordance with the MEC architectural standardization. We have verified the proposed protocol employing four different formal verification techniques: Scyther and AVISPA verification tools, GNY and ROR logical approaches. Further, we have developed the proposed protocol in a test-bed environment emulating the MEC system with an integrated 5G Core network.
Pasika Ranaweera is an Assistant Professor in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering in University College Dublin from September 2023. He was a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the UCD School of Computer Science in 2023. He was the project manager of the CONFIDENTIAL-6G project, funded by the EU H2022-SNS grant id: 101096435, during this profession. He obtained his Bachelor's degree in Electrical and Information Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering, University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka, in 2010 with honors and received the Lanekassen scholarship for pursuing the Master’s Degree in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in 2013 from the University of Agder, Norway. Pasika completed his Ph.D. from University College Dublin, Ireland, on improving the security of service migrations of MEC in 2023. Prior to his Ph.D., he served as a lecturer attached to the Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka, from 2014 to 2018. Pasika is experienced in conducting teaching/ instructing/ demonstration work at international universities (UCD-Ireland, BDIC-China). He is currently conducting collaborative research with researchers at IIT-India, the University of Oulu-Finland, and the University of Ruhuna-Sri Lanka. Pasika is focused on enhancing the security measures in 5G and beyond 5G mobile networks, while his main research focus is directed at Federated Learning-based security issues and how to overcome them utilizing Blockchain. His additional research directives extend to lightweight security protocols, formal verification, security, service quality optimization, 5G and MEC integration technologies (SDN, NFV, Blockchain), privacy preservation techniques, and IoT security. In addition to the research work, he serves as a reviewer for IEEE IoT journal, IEEE Access, IEEE Communication Magazine, IEEE IoT Magazine, SN Computer Science, and various IEEE-hosted conferences and workshops under the IEEE Communication Society (also a member of IEEE ComSoc).
