5G-AKA-FS: A 5G Authentication and Key Agreement Protocol for Forward Secrecy

Area of Science:

• Cybersecurity and Network Protocols
• Mobile Communication Security
• Cryptography

Background:

• 5G network security relies on primary authentication protocols like 5G-Authentication and Key Agreement (5G-AKA) and EAP-AKA'.
• Vulnerabilities in 5G-AKA, such as linkability attacks, necessitate protocol improvements.
• The evolving 5G landscape, including Authentication and Key Management for Applications (AKMA), demands enhanced security features like forward secrecy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose an augmented 5G-AKA protocol, termed 5G-AKA-FS, that addresses identified vulnerabilities.
• To achieve forward security and mitigate linkability attacks in 5G primary authentication.
• To ensure the proposed protocol is formally verified for security and evaluated for performance.

Main Methods:

• A novel augmentation to the 5G-AKA protocol (5G-AKA-FS) is proposed.
• The home network generates ephemeral key pairs for enhanced session key negotiation.
• Formal security verification is conducted using BAN Logic and ProVerif.

Main Results:

• The proposed 5G-AKA-FS protocol successfully achieves forward security.
• Linkability attacks are effectively thwarted by the new protocol.
• Formal verification confirms the validity and security of 5G-AKA-FS.

Conclusions:

• 5G-AKA-FS provides a robust solution for 5G primary authentication, enhancing security against known attacks.
• The protocol demonstrates a practical balance between advanced security features and acceptable communication/computation overheads.
• This work contributes to securing the digital transformation enabled by 5G technology.