A team of researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder is leading a major military-oriented project for 5G wireless security.
The National Science Foundation’s Convergence Accelerator Program has awarded the University of Boulder $5 million for “GHOST: 5.”G Hidentified ○series of work Sharden TRaffic. ” The goal of this effort is to allow American soldiers, businesses, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to use their 5G cell phone networks abroad without untrusted or potentially hostile network operators extracting user information. is to make it available.
“This research is important to the United States because it inherently protects the safety of the public,” said Eric Keller, a researcher on the project and associate professor of electrical, computer, and energy engineering (ECEE). he said.
Although 5G signals are encrypted to prevent malicious operators from eavesdropping on your conversations, they can still collect large amounts of data from your communications. The information that can be accessed includes users’ online activities, physical location, and personal and organizational usage patterns, said Keith Glenbun, the project’s principal investigator and research professor of aerospace engineering.
“We’re tackling problems that most people haven’t thought about,” Grebun said. “These larger questions about usage patterns – what you’re doing on your phone, when you’re doing it, and where you’re doing it – reveal a lot.”
This multidisciplinary team anonymizes users’ data and location, hides usage patterns, and even generates intentional false flag communications to tell observers that a group of users is actually somewhere else. They have developed a system to spoof cellular communications by tricking people into believing they are in a certain location when they are actually there.
“We’re changing the way a phone or a phone set looks to network operators,” Grebun said. “This is obviously important for soldiers, but it’s not the only one. Many companies and nonprofits operate in unstable parts of the world. Some countries have experienced a spate of kidnappings of corporate executives. . They’re very interested in preventing people from having their phones tracked.”
The team received a $750,000 Phase 1 grant last year for the initial development of the technology. His new $5 million award will allow him to combine the various components they created into one suite and commercialize the product.
“These tools work as a series of software applications that run on your phone and are hidden, so even if your phone is captured, people have no idea that something unusual is going on. It would be difficult to notice,” Grebun said.
Keller said the tool could make a big difference in hostile locations.
“I was fortunate enough to advise former military students at UC Boulder, and hearing the stories of their situations made me realize that GHOST could help keep them safe. I realized that there is,” Keller said.
GHOST team in front of Boulder Flatirons on campus.
The main business partner for this project is Federated Wireless, which builds and manages the 5G network. In addition to developing user anonymization technology, Federated is helping test prototypes using actual mobile phone devices, which is central to the team’s commercialization goals.
“Our efforts are focused on strengthening security for users of untrusted networks and streamlining the provisioning of private networks,” said Kurt Schaubach, Chief Technology Officer, Federated Wireless. Masu. “We are excited to work with university researchers to further strengthen the security of private 5G networks for federal, defense, and commercial applications.”
Grebun said the team’s success in developing the initial technology shows there is real promise for future products.
“I’ve worked in wireless communications for many years, so I’m very concerned about wireless security,” Grebun said. “I’ve had ideas in this field for a long time, and it’s very exciting to be able to bring together a great team of people who also have ideas and put research into practice.”
In addition to Grebun, Keller and Schaubach, the team also includes Alexandra Siegel, a political science professor at the University of Boulder. Tamara Lehman of ECEE. James Currie, Applied Mathematics (APPM); He is also a computer science (CS) researcher, Stefan Tschimben. Graduate students are Zach Moolman in ECEE and Tyler Reiser in APPM/Data Science. and APPM/CS undergraduate student Isabella Bates. Sal D’Itri, vice president of public sector at Federated Wireless, his James Neel, senior engineer at Federated Wireless, and Joanna Crosby, RDM Pierce, are also key contributors to the project.
