Spoofed Networks: Exploitation of GNSS Security Vulnerability in 4G and 5G Mobile Networks

5G New Radio (NR) represents a shift in mobile telephony whereby the network architecture runs containerized software on commodity hardware. In preparation, numerous 4G software stacks have been developed to test the containerization of core network functions and the interfaces with radio access network (RAN) protocols. In this work one such stack, developed by the OpenAirInterface Software Alliance (OSA), is used to create a low-cost, simplified mobile network. Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) user equipment (UE) is then connected to the network to demonstrate how a major buffer overflow vulnerability present in certain Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) chipsets can be leveraged to enable a spoofed network attack. Finally, the theoretical attack method is extended to 5G NR networks.