A team of computer scientists from Waterloo will lead the $1.5 million multi-partner consortium. The group is funded through the Department of Defense’s (DND) Innovation for Defense Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program. The project spanned his three years and included his Écolede technologiesupérieure in Montreal, the University of Regina, collaboration with academic and industry partners at BlackBerry, NoviFlow, and Rockport Networks, and the support of Rogers Communications Canada. The consortium will develop artificial intelligence (AI) systems to detect cyberattacks as soon as they occur on 5G networks. This will allow quick response and automatic countermeasures to keep the network secure.
Other security requirements will be included into the 5G network slices themselves, using end-to-end network slice orchestration that responds dynamically to an application’s security requirements and the severity of threats, the announcement revealed. 5G network slices, or network slicing, is a network configuration that allows multiple networks to be created on top of a common physical infrastructure. “Our mobile communications networks can be sliced using software into fit-for-purpose networks that operate virtually, each with a different degree of isolation and level of quality-of-service to meet security and performance requirements,” said Dr. Raouf Boutaba, the project’s principal investigator and director of Waterloo’s Cheriton School of Computer Science. “However, network softwarization also introduces vulnerabilities that can compromise services, including slices. The consortium’s goal is to deliver a 5G network slice that not only offers high performance, flexibility and reliability, but also increases the level of security required for critical applications. ” Various solutions will be integrated with technology from the consortium’s partners and collaborators to create a proof of concept at the University of Waterloo Rogers 5G Testbed.