A Novel Method of Determining an Authentic Cell in Next Generation Cellular Communication System

Unprecedented numbers of wireless devices are increasingly connecting, either autonomously or manually, to get various types of services via mobile communication systems. So far, majority of the efforts in the mobile communication system has been focused on delivering secure communication once connected, whereas security related to bootstrapping those connections are relatively less explored. A wireless device can connect to a cell without assessing base station's legitimacy. This opens way for the attackers to create room for rogue devices to enter a communication network and turn the environment malicious. False Base Station (FBS) attacks are one such example and its potential to cause active and passive impacts are an alarming concern, worldwide. In this paper, we present a new solution for mitigating FBS attacks and have simulated this experiment using OpenAirInterface (OAI) 5G codebase. In contrast to ECDSA, we propose a verification mechanism using ECCSI, an identity-based cryptography (IBC), and a novel mechanism to intelligently derive the keys on the fly and distribute the cryptographic parameters to the User Equipment (UE), which helps in determining an authentic cell during its initial connection phase. We also ensure a significant reduction in the number of cryptographic parameters required and allow law enforcement agencies to perform lawful interception without depending on the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs).