An Evaluation of Disrupting 5G Industrial Environments with Stealth Jamming

Jung T, Fink L, Spinnler C, Maiwald T, Franchi N (2026)

Publication Type: Conference contribution

Publication year: 2026

Pages Range: 1-10

Event location: Okayama

Journal Issue: 2026

DOI: 10.1109/ICCCI70321.2026.11666521

Abstract

Operational modes for fifth generation (5G) and upcoming mobile generations, such as ultra-reliable and lowlatency communications (URLLC), are important for modern industrial environments. The requirements for such network operations must be guaranteed even in challenging scenarios, including cases of external interference. This paper investigates network interference by stealthy noise jamming, i.e., an attack with low power and not aiming for a complete denial-of-service (DoS) but for network degradation. We conduct a measurement campaign within a 5G non-public network (NPN) testbed and evaluate the impact of the attack on Key Performance Indicators (KPI) in a static and a dynamic scenario. Our analysis reveals that attacking areas of weak coverage using subband noise with a power of -18.9 dBm can effectively reduce throughput and increase latency by 18.5% and 34%, respectively. Crucially, this is achieved with minimal impact on standard observed metrics and derived features. Although the divergence of signal-to-interference plus noise ratio (SINR) and received signal received power (RSRP) is an indicator of noise jamming, an adversary can circumvent this by avoiding jamming the Synchronization Signal Block (SSB), which leaves the reported SINR and RSRP to the base station unaffected. In such cases, the only valuable feature to estimate the SINR of the downlink channel is the quantized channel quality indicator (CQI). These findings high-light a critical vulnerability in industrial 5G deployments that require guaranteed quality of service (QoS), as disrupting reliable operation can be achieved with little effort, whereas mitigating such attacks require a sophisticated detection system that uses different metrics throughout a mobile communication system.

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How to cite

APA:

Jung, T., Fink, L., Spinnler, C., Maiwald, T., & Franchi, N. (2026). An Evaluation of Disrupting 5G Industrial Environments with Stealth Jamming. In Proceedings of the 2026 8th International Conference on Computer Communication and the Internet (ICCCI) (pp. 1-10). Okayama, JP.

MLA:

Jung, Tobias, et al. "An Evaluation of Disrupting 5G Industrial Environments with Stealth Jamming." Proceedings of the 2026 8th International Conference on Computer Communication and the Internet (ICCCI), Okayama 2026. 1-10.

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