The Security Aspect of 5G Fronthaul

During the development of 5G, much emphasis was placed on the core network and access enhancement. Slowly, the 5G fronthaul is also getting the attention it deserves to bring the entire network to the 5G world. Virtualization of network functions as well as architectural enhancement to the 5G RAN has made it necessary to re-examine the security aspect of the fronthaul. This article analyzes the security aspect of 5G fronthaul by looking at how the fronthaul evolves, from CPRI to eCPRI. With the architectural enhancement expected to support various 5G deployment models, some critically missing security enhancements in the fronthaul are also needed in the areas of security provisioning, certificate enrollment, secure environment, and synchronization plane security.