JOURNAL OF INFORMATICS AND TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING
Vol. 10 No. 1 (2026): Issues July 2026

Analysis of 5G Standalone Security Against Man-in-the-Middle Attacks Using Sequence Number Desynchronization

An Nisa (Politeknik Negeri Sriwijaya)
Sopian soim (Unknown)
Lindawati (Unknown)



Article Info

Publish Date
29 Jul 2026

Abstract

The architecture of standalone 5G networks offers improved communication performance, but its authentication procedures remain vulnerable to eavesdropping threats. This research evaluates the system’s vulnerability to Man-in-the-Middle attacks and proposes comprehensive mitigation methods to address these security issues. Relying on Open5GS as the core network and UERANSIM as a simulator for base stations and user devices, testing was conducted in a virtualized environment. The methods used include traffic manipulation at the N2 interface to trigger desynchronization of the sequence number in the 5G-AKA authentication procedure. Experimental results show that packet interception successfully caused sequence number desynchronization, which directly led to authentication failure and device isolation due to Denial of Service. Additionally, network monitoring revealed that the HTTP/2 protocol displays customer data in plain text. In conclusion, Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption has proven effective as a mitigation method. With this integration, internal communication channels have been converted to a fully encrypted HTTPS format, preventing eavesdropping attempts. Furthermore, customer cryptographic parameters remain protected while keeping the operational overhead below acceptable limits.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

jite

Publisher

Subject

Computer Science & IT Engineering

Description

JURNAL TEKNIK INFORMATIKA, JITE (Journal of Informatics and Telecommunication Engineering) is a journal that contains articles / publications and research results of scientific work related to the field of science of Informatics Engineering such as Software Engineering, Database, Data Mining, ...