Exposing the Security Weaknesses of Fifth Generation Handover Communication

With the development of Fifth Generation (5G) mobile telecommunication technology, the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is attempting to fulfill the increasing security demands of IoT-based applications. 3GPP has published the study report of the 5G handover architecture and security functions. In this work, we discuss the 5G handover key mechanism with its key hierarchy. In addition, the Xn-based, N2-based intra/inter AMF handover mechanism in 5G communication network is analyzed and identify the security weaknesses such as false base-station and Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack. Moreover, the handover mechanism suffers from authentication complexity due to high bandwidth consumption. From these security issues, all the future session keys will be compromised and secure connection between mobile/ user equipment and target base-station will not be established.