LAWRENCE — A new effort to strengthen the security of 5G wireless communication networks used by the U.S. military will be led by the University of Kansas.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $5 million Phase 2 Convergence Accelerator Track G grant to a KU-based research and development team. The project aims to provide a secure way to share situational awareness to U.S. military personnel over the same high-performance consumer 5G network that covers the United States, said lead researcher and It is led by Tae-joon Kim, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science.
But today, these networks are vulnerable to adversaries and distrusted by the U.S. military. Part of the reason is that these networks are not designed for many of the adversarial situations and electronic warfare scenarios that are common in military hardened networks. Additionally, much of the hardware supporting 5G is manufactured overseas.
“Everyone recognizes the importance of 5G,” Kim said. “It is critical to disseminating information quickly around the world. It serves as the fundamental backbone of virtually any business operation. One of the main forces enabling new applications is research, 3GPP standardization, and equipment manufacturing. New research leads to intellectual property that is incorporated into future standards and even into new base station and user equipment products. Nevertheless , over the past decade or so, U.S. leadership in the wireless industry has encountered several setbacks. There are no longer any major base station manufacturers headquartered in the U.S. Under 3GPP standards, critical intellectual property is , are dominated by vendors and countries that directly compete with the United States.”
To enable secure military use of foreign-made 5G infrastructure, Kim will lead a team called Zero TrustX (ZTX) to develop end-to-end security solutions for reliable 5G use. We plan to conduct basic research for development.
“Traditionally, security was implicitly contained within the network perimeter, similar to traditional perimeter-based security models,” Kim said. “Once you cross this boundary, it is assumed to be secure. This concept follows a trusted paradigm in which the user provides credentials. However, ‘zero trust’ means that even after access is granted, it is not trusted. differs significantly, as remains minimal. All operations are continuously monitored for potential threats. For example, when connecting to a network, continuous threat detection and mitigation occurs, quickly responding to detected threats and ensuring comprehensive security in milliseconds. ”
The Zero Trust solution devised by the ZTX team has two main parts: Zero Trust software and communications infrastructure, which provide end-to-end security.
“The communications infrastructure consists of a variety of components and pathways, including the radio network connecting the soldier to a foreign base station, subsequent routing through the core network, and finally transmission to a command center, perhaps in Washington, D.C. ” said Kim.
To secure this network, the ZTX team will consider 5G network infrastructure, including consumer networks spread across the United States, as a “black box,” KU researchers said.
“We aim to add an additional layer of security to data transmitted over 5G networks by user equipment,” he said. “This additional layer could include job-specific encryption, near real-time threat detection, and protection against location-based attacks. The resulting location information could be misused for harmful purposes. To address this, we aim to use advanced spatial coding techniques to obfuscate a device’s location.”
Another important aspect, Kim said, is making the data traffic look ordinary to potential adversaries.
“By disguising on-mission traffic as regular 5G traffic, we can reduce the likelihood of suspicion,” he said. “The goal is to prevent attackers from recognizing suspicious packets or patterns in your data. Our approach is rooted in remaining secure without arousing suspicion.”
ZTX researchers said their work will result in a suite of software called a “Zero Trust Chain” that requires no changes to public 5G/O-RAN networks. The final step is to run tests on a lab-scale integrated 5G/O-RAN testbed and other available testbeds with the goal of bringing the software to market.
The ZTX software family will be commercialized by startups associated with the partnership (also known as ZTX), as the product will also benefit private enterprises using 5G. The startup is currently considering space in the KU Innovation Park, Kim said. The startup aims to continue its research activities beyond the term of the Phase 2 grant.
The partnership and new company will create training opportunities for KU students as well as new jobs in Lawrence and other communities. Kim said project manager David Tamez, a communications specialist in KU’s Institute for Information Science (I2S), will play a key role in overseeing these projects.
“We regularly welcome students, including graduate students, to our team, along with web developers and engineers,” says Kim. “Our engineering team is diverse, including professionals with industry experience and academic backgrounds. We work closely with this team to effectively execute project goals. I am.”
The ZTX team includes researchers from Iowa State University, Sang Kim; Vuk Marojevic of Mississippi State University. Syed Rafiul Hussain, Pennsylvania State University. David Love, Sonia Fahmy, and Chris Bullington of Purdue University; Remi Chow of the University of Texas at Arlington. and Hyuk Kwon of Wichita State University. Those agencies will be joined by staff from Raytheon defense contractor Chris Vander Valk and Air Force Research Laboratory Khan Pham.
Top image: iStock.
