Network slicing (NS) plays a crucial role in 5G networks; it enables the delivery of heterogeneous services and uses cases such as voice communication, video streaming, and Extended Reality (XR), and it also partitions the physical network into several logical networks, known as network slices, to cater the vertical industries via sharing the physical infrastructure. However, infrastructure and functional sharing present security and privacy challenges. In this work, we examine the characteristics of XR traffic across several 5G slicing configurations in the presence of attacks, including ping flood, User Datagram Protocol (UDP) flood, and registration flood attacks. The primary contribution of our research is the analysis of the impact of these different attacks on the XR traffic using different slice configurations. The results indicate the effects of the different attacks on XR traffic in terms of reducing the traffic throughput (Mbps) and the changes in the XR traffic characteristics in the different slice configurations. Also, the isolation of the Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) in the user plane provides better performance in the presence of these attacks.

Virtualized Network Function (VNF) sharing among multiple Fifth Generation (5G) slices allows network operators to increase the efficiency and utilization of the network. However, this sharing of VNFs can result in a degradation of the performance of the slices in the presence of an attack. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of flooding attacks on the performance of 5G slices with different VNF sharing configurations. We consider two VNF sharing configurations, in the first configuration, the Session Management Function (SMF) and User Plane Function (UPF) are shared among the deployed slices, while the SMF and UPF of the slices are isolated in the second configuration. The performance of these configurations is evaluated using different traffic types under two flooding attack scenarios; a ping flood attack targeting the data plane of 5G network, and a registration request flood attack directed at the control plane of 5G network. Our results showed different responses in the control and data planes. In the data plane, isolating VNFs of the slices provides better performance and mitigates the adverse effects of the attacks studied.

A document by Mohammed Mahyoub . Click on the document to view its contents.