A 5G and beyond Testbed for Cybersecurity Research and Education

The advent of 5G technology marks a pivotal advancement in mobile communications, enhancing broadband connectivity, enabling low-latency connections, and facilitating a broader range of diverse applications. Although advantageous, the introduction of 5G also introduces greater infrastructure complexity and increased cybersecurity vulnerabilities. This paper addresses these issues by developing a comprehensive 5G testbed for research and education purposes. The testbed integrates opensource software with physical hardware components to create a realistic environment for simulating and analyzing cyberattacks. Through various scenarios, including Denial of Service attacks and database exploits, we demonstrate the susceptibility of 5G core networks to these threats. Our findings reveal critical vulnerabilities in the Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF) and MySQL database, which can disrupt 5G network operations and compromise data integrity. The practical approach presented in this paper identify and mitigate 5G security threats provides valuable insights for enhancing the resilience of 5G/6G networks.