Radio Access Network Slicing Security for NextG Networks

Principal Investigator: 

Laura Freeman, director of the Intelligent Systems Lab in the Hume Center for National Security and Technology; research associate professor, statistics, Virginia Tech

Co-Prinicipal Investigators: 

Sachin Shetty, executive director, Center for Secure and Intelligent Critical Systems at Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center, Old Dominion University

Daniel Jakubisin, research assistant professor, Hume Center for National Security and Technology, Virginia Tech

Tugba Erpek, lead scientist, Intelligent Automation Inc.; affiliated faculty member, Hume Center’s Intelligent Systems Lab, Virginia Tech

Radio Access Network Slicing Security for NextG Networks Project Description:

Augmented reality/virtual reality, connected vehicles, and the Internet of Things devices require serious network performance, each in their own unique ways. To meet this challenge, researchers are looking at strategies to slice networks to create multiple virtual, independent networks that share space on physical network resources.  Machine learning (ML) has become a key part of 5G network slicing but could be vulnerable to attacks in a technique called adversarial ML or AML.  In this project, a team of researchers will address adversarial ML attacks against network slicing and will design novel defense mechanisms.  The team aims to establish a foundation for secure network slicing and the secure management and orchestration of NextG networks.  NextG networks promise to bring fast, reliable, and versatile interconnectivity for AR/VR headsets, connected vehicles, and IoT devices and this research team intends to keep it that way, by keeping adversarial ML attackers out.