Open Radio Access Networks (O-RAN) introduce unprecedented flexibility, interoperability, and intelligence into next-generation wireless systems, but their disaggregated and software-defined architecture also expands the attack surface and creates new security vulnerabilities. Conventional cryptographic mechanisms, while effective against classical threats, may become insufficient in the presence of quantum-enabled adversaries. This article presents a comprehensive perspective on quantum security for O-RAN, examining how quantum-resilient mechanisms can enhance confidentiality, authentication, and trust across the RAN ecosystem. It discusses post-quantum cryptography (PQC), quantum cryptography, quantum authentication, and quantum-enhanced threat detection within a zero-trust architecture based on continuous verification, least privilege, and micro-segmentation. Their integration with the Near-Real-Time (Near-RT) RAN Intelligent Controller, O-Cloud, and open interfaces is analyzed, together with practical deployment considerations, technology maturity, and adoption timelines. Finally, open research directions are outlined toward secure, resilient, and future-proof O-RAN architectures for 6G networks.
Dzung Quoc Ngo, Tharmikka Raveendranathan, Tuan Anh Le et al.· 0 citations
This paper investigates a reconfigurable-intelligent-surface (RIS)-aided simultaneous-wireless-information-and-power-transfer (SWIPT) system, which can be utilized in crisis-resilient scenarios. Specifically, a passive RIS is deployed to facilitate both data transmission for information users (IUs), e.g., the response team, and wireless power delivery for energy devices (EDs), e.g., wireless sensors and wearable devices. In the considered RIS-assisted SWIPT system, the active beamforming vectors at the base station and the passive phase-shift vectors at the RIS are jointly optimized with the objective of minimizing the total transmit power subject to three critical constraints: i) guaranteeing quality-of-service requirements of the IUs to ensure reliable communications, ii) satisfying the required power demands of EDs for uninterrupted operation, and iii) preserving the passive characteristics of the RIS. The resulting optimization problem is non-convex and multivariate, rendering it NP-hard. To address this challenge, a bio-inspired firefly algorithm (FFA) is developed to obtain near-optimal solutions. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed FFA-based approach achieves significant transmit power savings and outperforms conventional alternating optimization techniques in both solution quality and scalability.
