Challenges in Certificate Management Over Open RAN Fronthaul Interface

Open RAN is transforming mobile networks into open and flexible environments through the integration of modern software and artificial intelligence. However, the existing standardization documents provide insufficient guidelines on the issuance and revocation of certificates, posing potential risks for the system. As an initial effort to overcome this limitation, we study the challenges related to the certificate management framework over the Open RAN fronthaul interface, with a particular focus on the mutual authentication and the coordination of security policies across different vendors.