Question About 5G Security Mechanisms in 5G-LENA

[Alan Birchler]

Hello,

I'm a PhD student who is working on a thesis to explore the affects of different kinds of security protocols/mechanisms on the performance of 5G connections such as latency. As such, I came across 5G-LENA as I'm currently looking into 5G simulation frameworks to use for this thesis.

What I would like to know is when a user simulates a 5G system using 5G-LENA, to what extent does the framework take into account native 5G security mechanisms/protocols that are specified within the 3GPP standards? For example, if I am trying to simulate a simple scenario where a UE is communicating with another UE via a gNodeB, does the simulation by default include the ciphering process to encrypt the traffic using a standard ciphering algorithm (ZUC, AES, etc.). If not by default, is this a configurable parameter within the framework? Or would a user have to fork the framework and manually implement these algorithms in the code in order to include this process in the simulation?

[Gabriel Ferreira]

Ciphers are not currently implemented. It is hardly ever used, because it just slows down simulations and only really interest security researchers, which are usually more interested in real implementations.
So yes, you would need to implement it.

[Alan Birchler]

Hello,

Thanks for getting back to me. So then is it safe to assume that 5G-LENA does not incorporate in its simulations any of the security protocols specified in the 3GPP standards (i.e. how a gNodeB/UE handles authentication, key exchange, certificate validation, etc.)?

[Gabriel Ferreira]

Yes. No security mechanism is currently implemented.