Communication in crisis situations requires a reliable and stable mobile network that is prepared for both targeted attacks and crisis situations, such as natural disasters. During such unpredictable incidents, minimal communication and a quick re-establishment of the system must be ensured.

The goal of the 6G-ReS project is to develop and test trustworthy 5G/6G systems with the resilience described above. The basis for the work is the identification of use cases and the functionalities required by them.

In the project, the Barkhausen Institut (BI) is investigating the O-RAN standard for the Radio Access Network (RAN). O-RAN promises open interfaces and interoperability, which would eliminate dependencies on individual manufacturers. Virtualization also makes it possible to flexibly integrate applications to optimize the RAN. At the same time, these features result in new attacker models from which the system must be protected. The BI will therefore address the issue of how to securely integrate 5G or O-RAN components that originate from non-trusted vendors, for example. Specifically, this means that the paradigm of multilateral security ("zero trust") will be taken as a basis, and availability will be considered an essential protection goal.

The 5G testbed at BI will make it possible to test and further develop the concepts on site. Moreover, part of the architecture will be a trusted virtualization environment in which network tasks will be executed. In this context, the BI will investigate how remote attestation procedures can be integrated for mutual trustworthy identification. These procedures verify that all components involved are trustworthy and secure.

Project webpage: https://www.6g-res.de/

Project duration: 2022 – 2024

Contact: Dr. Stefan Köpsell (Stefan.Koepsell@barkhauseninstitut.org)

Cooperation partners: secunet Security Networks AG, Vodafone GmbH, Scontain GmbH, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU)