5G-Pentest-UE: A Penetration Testing Framework for Identifying 5G System Vulnerabilities

Research output: Contribution to conferencesPaperContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Richard Riedel - , Barkhausen Institut (Author)
  • Stefan Köpsell - , Barkhausen Institut (Author)

Abstract

This paper presents and evaluates an open source penetration testing framework for finding vulnerabilities in 5G systems under the assumption of malicious end devices. This is achieved by enabling the creation of arbitrary (5G) messages to be transmitted over the air interface of a 5G system. Our framework is modular and scriptable, allowing the easy creation of test cases. It is based on the OpenAirInterface (OAI) open source 5G stack. We evaluated our framework by implementing several tests and running it against a well-known open source 5G system. We were able to identify several vulnerabilities.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages326-339
Number of pages14
Publication statusPublished - 2025
Peer-reviewedYes
Externally publishedYes

Conference

Title20th International conference on Availability, Reliability and Security
Abbreviated titleARES 2025
Conference number20
Duration11 - 14 August 2025
Website
LocationUniversity of Ghent
CityGhent
CountryBelarus

External IDs

Scopus 105014482356
ORCID /0000-0002-0466-562X/work/199216542

Keywords

Keywords

  • 5G, OpenAirInterface, mobile networks, penetration testing, security, user equipment, vulnerabilities