Abstract
In the 5G-Advanced and 6G era, the Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) will support hardware and software interoperability between different vendors. The O-RAN Alliance, which leads the Open RAN initiative, has released standards addressing potential threats and mitigation requirements to the framework. While the standards specify Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks on the E2 interface and recommend using IPsec, a Layer 3 security protocol, they do not cover defenses against Layer 2 attacks, such as Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) spoofing. This paper proposes an xApp with preventive and reactive mechanisms to protect the E2 interface from ARP spoofing in Open RAN. The xApp proactively prevents attacks through a static ARP table and continuously monitors the E2 interface to detect and react to the ARP spoofing, offering better network resilience than existing methods.
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Acknowledgement
This work was supported by Institute of Information & communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. RS-2021-II210796, Research on Foundational Technologies for 6G Autonomous Security-by-Design to Guarantee Constant Quality of Security).
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Kim, J., Park, J., Lee, JH. (2025). ARP Spoofing Mitigation for the E2 Interface in Open RAN: An xApp Approach. In: Lee, JH., Emura, K., Lee, S. (eds) Information Security Applications. WISA 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 15499. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-96-1624-4_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-96-1624-4_3
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