Fortifying Open RAN Security with Zero Trust Architecture and Transformers

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Open Radio Access Networks (Open RAN) have gained significant traction in modern telecommunications due to their cost-efficiency and scalability. However, their open architecture introduces critical security challenges. To fortify Open RAN security, this paper proposes a novel approach that combines the principles of Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) with the use of transformer-based models. ZTA operates on the premise that all network entities are untrusted until authenticated, providing a robust security foundation. By integrating transformers, renowned for their efficiency in processing unstructured data, we enable real-time analysis of time series data within specified windows, enhancing anomaly detection. We leverage a dataset constructed from a functional 5G test network to evaluate the effectiveness of our transformer-based approach. Our findings demonstrate the superior performance of our approach compared to other benchmark methods.