Open or not open: Are conventional radio access networks more secure and trustworthy than Open-RAN?

The Open RAN architecture is a promising and future-oriented architecture. It is intended to open up the radio access network (RAN) and enable more innovation and competition in the market. This will lead to RANs for current 5G networks, but especially for future 6G networks, evolving from the current highly integrated, vendor-specific RAN architecture towards disaggregated architectures with open interfaces that will enable to better tailor RAN solutions to the requirements of 5G and 6G applications. However, the introduction of such an open architecture substantially broadens the attack possibilities when compared to conventional RANs. In the past, this has often led to negative headlines that in summary have associated Open RAN with faulty or inadequate security. In this paper, we analyze what components are involved in an Open RAN deployment, how to assess the current state of security, and what measures need to be taken to ensure secure operation.