Closing the Visibility Gap: A Monitoring Framework for Verifiable Open RAN Operations
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| author | Yu, Hexuan Barat, Md Mohaimin Al Xiao, Yang Hou, Y. Thomas Lou, Wenjing |
| author_facet | Yu, Hexuan Barat, Md Mohaimin Al Xiao, Yang Hou, Y. Thomas Lou, Wenjing |
| contents | Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) is reshaping mobile network architecture by promoting openness, disaggregation, and cross-vendor interoperability. However, this architectural flexibility introduces new security challenges, especially in deployments where multiple mobile network operators (MNOs) jointly operate shared components. Existing Zero Trust Architectures (ZTA) in O-RAN, as defined by governmental and industry standards, implicitly assume that authenticated components will comply with operational policies. However, this assumption creates a critical blind spot: misconfigured or compromised components can silently violate policies, misuse resources, or corrupt downstream processes (e.g., ML-based RIC xApps).
To address this critical gap, we propose a monitoring framework for low-trust O-RAN environments that proactively verifies configuration state and control behavior against tenant-defined policies. Our system provides scalable, verifiable oversight to enhance transparency and trust in O-RAN operations. We implement and evaluate the framework using standardized O-RAN configurations, with total processing latency of approximately 200 ms, demonstrating its efficiency and practicality for timely policy enforcement and compliance auditing in multi-MNO deployments. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_03000 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Closing the Visibility Gap: A Monitoring Framework for Verifiable Open RAN Operations Yu, Hexuan Barat, Md Mohaimin Al Xiao, Yang Hou, Y. Thomas Lou, Wenjing Networking and Internet Architecture Cryptography and Security Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) is reshaping mobile network architecture by promoting openness, disaggregation, and cross-vendor interoperability. However, this architectural flexibility introduces new security challenges, especially in deployments where multiple mobile network operators (MNOs) jointly operate shared components. Existing Zero Trust Architectures (ZTA) in O-RAN, as defined by governmental and industry standards, implicitly assume that authenticated components will comply with operational policies. However, this assumption creates a critical blind spot: misconfigured or compromised components can silently violate policies, misuse resources, or corrupt downstream processes (e.g., ML-based RIC xApps). To address this critical gap, we propose a monitoring framework for low-trust O-RAN environments that proactively verifies configuration state and control behavior against tenant-defined policies. Our system provides scalable, verifiable oversight to enhance transparency and trust in O-RAN operations. We implement and evaluate the framework using standardized O-RAN configurations, with total processing latency of approximately 200 ms, demonstrating its efficiency and practicality for timely policy enforcement and compliance auditing in multi-MNO deployments. |
| title | Closing the Visibility Gap: A Monitoring Framework for Verifiable Open RAN Operations |
| topic | Networking and Internet Architecture Cryptography and Security |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.03000 |