Security Threats, Requirements and Recommendations on Creating 5G Network Slicing System: A Survey

Network slicing empowers 5G with enhanced network performance and efficiency, cost saving, and better QoS and customer satisfaction, and expands the commercial application scenarios of 5G networks. However, the introduction of new techniques usually raises new security threats. Most of the existing works on 5G security only focus on 5G itself and do not analyze 5G network slicing security in detail. We consider network slices as a virtual logical network that can unite the subnetwork parts of 5G. If a 5G network slice has security problems or has been attacked, the entire 5G network will have security risks. In this paper, after synthesizing the existing literature, we analyze the security threats step by step through the lifecycle of 5G network slices, analyzing and summarizing more than 70 security threats in three major categories. Based on the security issues investigated, from a viewpoint of building a secure 5G network slicing system, we compiled 24 security requirements and proposed the corresponding recommendations for different scenarios of 5G network slicing. Finally, we collated the future research trends of 5G network slicing security.