5G Network Slice Isolation

Abstract

This article reveals an adequate comprehension of basic defense, security challenges, and attack vectors in deploying multi-network slicing. Network slicing is a revolutionary concept of providing mobile network on-demand and expanding mobile networking business and services to a new era. The new business paradigm and service opportunities are encouraging vertical industries to join and develop their own mobile network capabilities for enhanced performances that are coherent with their applications. However, a number of security concerns are also raised in this new era. In this article, we focus on the deployment of multi-network slicing with multi-tenancy. We identify the security concerns and discuss the defense approaches such as network slice isolation and insulation in a multi-layer network slicing security model. Furthermore, we identify the importance to appropriately select the network slice isolation points and propose a generic framework to optimize the isolation policy regarding the implementation cost while guaranteeing the security and performance requirements.