Built-in security framework research for 6G network

Abstract

6G will enable seamless coverage across land, sea, sky, and space, and provide users with on-demand services. 6G requires high security and its security capabilities are expected to serve as an independent logical plane under the 6G network architecture to provide services and guarantee for 6G networks and applications. This article analyzes and summarizes the three aspects of 6G security evolution requirements. First, the distributed autonomy of network architecture increases the exposure surface of network equipment and functions, and puts forward the requirements for high security of network elements and subnets themselves. Second, the cloud and virtualization technologies increase the risk of internal attacks, and require security protection mechanisms within network elements and the internal network based on the concept of zero trust. Third, providing on-demand services to customers requires intelligent collaboration mechanisms within the network, as well as an elastic and programmable security capability pool. Based on the above requirements and the development of security technologies, this paper proposes a 6G security construction idea with the built-in security framework as the basis, which includes security capability layer, security policy controller, security intelligence center and security management center, collaborating with the trusted infrastructure, orchestration capabilities and artificial intelligence abilities. The framework is built upon the security capability inside the network, coordinated with the trust consensus and the intelligent collaboration, which forms a security architecture and related operating mechanisms with active immunity, trustworthiness, and collaborative elasticity. By means of the practical case of building a trust link, the framework is proved to be able to provide flexible and on-demand security services for 6G networks and applications.