{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,31]],"date-time":"2026-07-31T15:29:22Z","timestamp":1785511762013,"version":"3.56.0"},"reference-count":51,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,2,12]],"date-time":"2025-02-12T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1739318400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"ONOFRE 3","award":["PID2020-112675RB-C44"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["PID2020-112675RB-C44"]}]},{"name":"MCIN\/AEI\/10.13039\/5011000011033","award":["PID2020-112675RB-C44"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["PID2020-112675RB-C44"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Future Internet"],"abstract":"<jats:p>In the rapidly evolving landscape of telecommunications, the integration of commercial 5G solutions and the rise of edge computing have reshaped service delivery, emphasizing the customization of requirements through network slices. However, the heterogeneity of devices and technologies in 5G and beyond networks poses significant challenges, particularly in terms of security management. Addressing this complexity, our work adopts the Zero-touch network and Service Management (ZSM) reference architecture to enable end-to-end automation of security and service management in Beyond 5G networks. This paper introduces the ZSM-based framework, which harnesses software-defined networking, network function virtualization, end-to-end slicing, and orchestration paradigms to autonomously enforce and preserve security service level agreements (SSLAs) across multiple domains that make up a 5G network. The framework autonomously manages end-to-end security slices through intent-driven closed loops at various logical levels, ensuring compliance with ETSI end-to-end network slice management standards for 5G communication services. The paper elaborates with an SSLA-triggered use case comprising two phases: proactive, wherein the framework deploys and configures an end-to-end security slice tailored to the security service level agreement specifications, and reactive, where machine learning-trained security mechanisms autonomously detect and mitigate novel beyond 5G attacks exploiting open-sourced 5G core threat vectors. Finally, the results of the implementation and validation are presented, demonstrating the practical application of this research. Interestingly, these research results have been integrated into the ETSI ZSM Proof of Concept #6: \u2019Security SLA Assurance in 5G Network Slices\u2019, highlighting the relevance and impact of the study in the real world.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/fi17020086","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,2,12]],"date-time":"2025-02-12T12:12:16Z","timestamp":1739362336000},"page":"86","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":6,"title":["ZSM Framework for Autonomous Security Service Level Agreement Life-Cycle Management in B5G Networks"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"17","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9980-5866","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Rodrigo","family":"Asensio-Garriga","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Information and Communications Engineering, University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0038-9012","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Alejandro","family":"Molina Zarca","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Spanish Air Force Academy, University Center of Defense, 30729 San Javier, Spain"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7573-6731","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jordi","family":"Ortiz","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Spanish Air Force Academy, University Center of Defense, 30729 San Javier, Spain"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6860-5100","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ana","family":"Hermosilla","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Information and Communications Engineering, University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Hugo Ram\u00f3n","family":"Pascual","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Telef\u00f3nica I + D, 28013 Madrid, Spain"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2849-9782","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Antonio","family":"Pastor","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Telef\u00f3nica I + D, 28013 Madrid, Spain"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5525-1259","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Antonio","family":"Skarmeta","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Information and Communications Engineering, University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,2,12]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"22823","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2017.2715318","article-title":"On the Flexibility and Autonomy of 5G Wireless Networks","volume":"5","author":"Simsek","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_2","first-page":"69","article-title":"Network Service Orchestration: A survey","volume":"142\u2013143","author":"Rosa","year":"2019","journal-title":"Comput. Commun."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"081301","DOI":"10.1007\/s11432-017-9426-4","article-title":"Overview of 5G security technology","volume":"61","author":"Ji","year":"2018","journal-title":"Sci. China Inf. Sci."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Siriwardhana, Y., Porambage, P., Liyanage, M., and Ylianttila, M. (2021, January 8\u201311). AI and 6G Security: Opportunities and Challenges. Proceedings of the 2021 Joint European Conference on Networks and Communications & 6G Summit EuCNC6G Summit, Porto, Portugal.","DOI":"10.1109\/EuCNC\/6GSummit51104.2021.9482503"},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gkonis, P., Giannopoulos, A., Trakadas, P., Masip-Bruin, X., and D\u2019Andria, F. (2023). A Survey on IoT-Edge-Cloud Continuum Systems: Status, Challenges, Use Cases, and Open Issues. Future Internet, 15.","DOI":"10.20944\/preprints202311.0532.v1"},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"134","DOI":"10.1109\/MWC.2019.1800498","article-title":"Artificial Intelligence for Elastic Management and Orchestration of 5G Networks","volume":"26","author":"Wang","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Wirel. Commun."},{"key":"ref_7","unstructured":"ETSI GS ZSM 006 Version 1.1.1 (2024, March 01). Zero Touch Network and Service Management (ZSM); Proof of Concept Framework. Available online: https:\/\/www.etsi.org\/deliver\/etsi_gs\/ZSM\/001_099\/006\/01.01.01_60\/gs_ZSM006v010101p.pdf."},{"key":"ref_8","unstructured":"ETSI (2024, March 15). Zero Touch Network and Service Management (ZSM); Reference Architecture. Available online: https:\/\/www.etsi.org\/deliver\/etsi_gs\/ZSM\/001_099\/002\/01.01.01_60\/gs_ZSM002v010101p.pdf."},{"key":"ref_9","unstructured":"ETSI (2024, March 15). ETSI GS ZSM 003 v1.1-cdn.standards.iteh.ai. Available online: https:\/\/cdn.standards.iteh.ai\/samples\/54284\/23c11fe05cfb4e018436ac371db62dac\/ETSI-GS-ZSM-003-V1-1-1-2021-06-.pdf."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"485","DOI":"10.1109\/OJVT.2024.3375448","article-title":"ZSM-Based E2E Security Slice Management for DDoS Attack Protection in MEC-Enabled V2X Environments","volume":"5","author":"Alemany","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Open J. Veh. Technol."},{"key":"ref_11","unstructured":"ETSI (2024, December 16). ETSI ZSM PoC 6: Intent-Based Assurance for 5G and Beyond. Available online: https:\/\/zsmwiki.etsi.org\/images\/e\/e1\/ZSM_POC_6.pdf."},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2535","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2022.3212586","article-title":"Zero Touch Management: A Survey of Network Automation Solutions for 5G and 6G Networks","volume":"24","author":"Coronado","year":"2022","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutorials"},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"103362","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jnca.2022.103362","article-title":"A survey on Zero touch network and Service Management (ZSM) for 5G and beyond networks","volume":"203","author":"Liyanage","year":"2022","journal-title":"J. Netw. Comput. Appl."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"124","DOI":"10.1109\/MNET.001.1900273","article-title":"ZSM Security: Threat Surface and Best Practices","volume":"34","author":"Benzaid","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Netw."},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Rokui, R., Yu, H., Deng, L., Allabaugh, D., Hemmati, M., and Janz, C. (July, January 29). A Standards-Based, Model-Driven Solution for 5G Transport Slice Automation and Assurance. Proceedings of the 2020 6th IEEE Conference on Network Softwarization (NetSoft), Ghent, Belgium.","DOI":"10.1109\/NetSoft48620.2020.9165451"},{"key":"ref_16","first-page":"257","article-title":"Intent-driven Closed Loops for Autonomous Networks","volume":"9","author":"Gomes","year":"2021","journal-title":"J. ICT Stand."},{"key":"ref_17","first-page":"91","article-title":"End-to-End Service Monitoring for Zero-Touch Networks","volume":"9","year":"2021","journal-title":"J. ICT Stand."},{"key":"ref_18","unstructured":"Sajjad, M.M., Jayalath, D., Tian, Y.C., and Bernardos, C.J. (2022). ZSM-based Management and Orchestration of 3GPP Network Slicing: An Architectural Framework and Deployment Options. arXiv."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"47","DOI":"10.1016\/j.comnet.2019.02.017","article-title":"Availability-driven NFV orchestration","volume":"155","author":"Casazza","year":"2019","journal-title":"Comput. Netw."},{"key":"ref_20","unstructured":"Puliafito, A., and Trivedi, K.S. (2019). Container Orchestration: A Survey. Systems Modeling: Methodologies and Tools, Springer International Publishing."},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Salhab, N., Rahim, R., and Langar, R. (May, January 29). NFV Orchestration Platform for 5G over On-the-fly Provisioned Infrastructure. Proceedings of the IEEE INFOCOM 2019\u2014IEEE Conference on Computer Communications Workshops (INFOCOM WKSHPS), Paris, France.","DOI":"10.1109\/INFCOMW.2019.8845141"},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2429","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2018.2815638","article-title":"Network Slicing and Softwarization: A Survey on Principles, Enabling Technologies, and Solutions","volume":"20","author":"Afolabi","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutorials"},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"69144","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2023.3292788","article-title":"Enhancing Network Slicing Architectures With Machine Learning, Security, Sustainability and Experimental Networks Integration","volume":"11","author":"Martins","year":"2023","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"534","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2023.3312349","article-title":"A Survey on Network Slicing Security: Attacks, Challenges, Solutions and Research Directions","volume":"26","author":"Porambage","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutorials"},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"107829","DOI":"10.1016\/j.comnet.2021.107829","article-title":"5G network slices resource orchestration using Machine Learning techniques","volume":"188","author":"Salhab","year":"2021","journal-title":"Comput. Netw."},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"222","DOI":"10.1109\/MNET.113.2100739","article-title":"Deep Reinforcement Learning for End-to-End Network Slicing: Challenges and Solutions","volume":"37","author":"Liu","year":"2022","journal-title":"IEEE Netw."},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ordonez-Lucena, J., Tranoris, C., Rodrigues, J., and Contreras, L.M. (2020, January 15\u201318). Cross-domain Slice Orchestration for Advanced Vertical Trials in a Multi-Vendor 5G Facility. Proceedings of the 2020 European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC), Dubrovnik, Croatia.","DOI":"10.1109\/EuCNC48522.2020.9200940"},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"994","DOI":"10.1109\/TNSM.2023.3287651","article-title":"Survey on Machine Learning-Enabled Network Slicing: Covering the Entire Life Cycle","volume":"21","author":"Donatti","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Netw. Serv. Manag."},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Zehra, S., Faseeha, U., Syed, H.J., Samad, F., Ibrahim, A.O., Abulfaraj, A.W., and Nagmeldin, W. (2023). Machine Learning-Based Anomaly Detection in NFV: A Comprehensive Survey. Sensors, 23.","DOI":"10.3390\/s23115340"},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1153","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2015.2494502","article-title":"A survey of data mining and machine learning methods for cyber security intrusion detection","volume":"18","author":"Buczak","year":"2015","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutorials"},{"key":"ref_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2823","DOI":"10.1007\/s13042-018-00906-1","article-title":"Machine learning techniques applied to cybersecurity","volume":"10","author":"Torres","year":"2019","journal-title":"Int. J. Mach. Learn. Cybern."},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Berman, D.S., Buczak, A.L., Chavis, J.S., and Corbett, C.L. (2019). A survey of deep learning methods for cyber security. Information, 10.","DOI":"10.3390\/info10040122"},{"key":"ref_33","unstructured":"Herrera, J.A., and Camargo, J.E. (2019, January 5\u20137). A survey on machine learning applications for software defined network security. Proceedings of the International Conference on Applied Cryptography and Network Security, Bogota, Colombia."},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"158036","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2020.3019658","article-title":"Detection of encrypted cryptomining malware connections with machine and deep learning","volume":"8","author":"Pastor","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"114066","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2020.2996214","article-title":"A Machine Learning Security Framework for Iot Systems","volume":"8","author":"Bagaa","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_36","first-page":"1447","article-title":"Advancing 5G Network Applications Lifecycle Security: An ML-Driven Approach","volume":"141","author":"Hermosilla","year":"2024","journal-title":"Comput. Model. Eng. Sci."},{"key":"ref_37","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"32","DOI":"10.1109\/MCOM.001.1900653","article-title":"Network Slicing Meets Artificial Intelligence: An AI-Based Framework for Slice Management","volume":"58","author":"Bega","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Mag."},{"key":"ref_38","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Jiang, W., Anton, S.D., and Dieter Schotten, H. (2019, January 11\u201313). Intelligence Slicing: A Unified Framework to Integrate Artificial Intelligence into 5G Networks. Proceedings of the 2019 12th IFIP Wireless and Mobile Networking Conference (WMNC), Paris, France.","DOI":"10.23919\/WMNC.2019.8881402"},{"key":"ref_39","first-page":"163","article-title":"Federated Network Intelligence Orchestration for Scalable and Automated FL-Based Anomaly Detection in B5G Networks","volume":"80","author":"Skarmeta","year":"2024","journal-title":"Comput. Mater. Contin."},{"key":"ref_40","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Wichary, T., Mongay Batalla, J., Mavromoustakis, C.X., \u017burek, J., and Mastorakis, G. (2022). Network Slicing Security Controls and Assurance for Verticals. Electronics, 11.","DOI":"10.3390\/electronics11020222"},{"key":"ref_41","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Perez Palma, N., Matheu Garcia, S.N., Zarca, A., Ortiz, J., and Skarmeta, A. (2021, January 13\u201315). Enhancing trust and liability assisted mechanisms for ZSM 5G architectures. Proceedings of the 2021 IEEE 4th 5G World Forum (5GWF), Montreal, QC, Canada.","DOI":"10.1109\/5GWF52925.2021.00070"},{"key":"ref_42","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Vilalta, R., Alemany, P., Sedar, R., Kalalas, C., Casellas, R., Mart\u00ednez, R., V\u00e1zquez-Gallego, F., Ortiz, J., Skarmeta, A., and Alonso-Zarate, J. (2020, January 10\u201312). Applying Security Service Level Agreements in V2X Network Slices. Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE Conference on Network Function Virtualization and Software Defined Networks (NFV-SDN), Leganes, Spain.","DOI":"10.1109\/NFV-SDN50289.2020.9289861"},{"key":"ref_43","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Casola, V., De Benedictis, A., Rak, M., and Villano, U. (2015, January 21\u201324). SLA-Based Secure Cloud Application Development: The SPECS Framework. Proceedings of the 2015 17th International Symposium on Symbolic and Numeric Algorithms for Scientific Computing (SYNASC), Timisoara, Romania.","DOI":"10.1109\/SYNASC.2015.59"},{"key":"ref_44","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Marsan, M.A., Corazza, G., Listanti, M., and Roveri, A. (2003). TStat: TCP STatistic and Analysis Tool. Quality of Service in Multiservice IP Networks, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/3-540-36480-3"},{"key":"ref_45","unstructured":"Marin-Lopez, R., Lopez-Millan, G., and Pereniguez-Garcia, F. (2024, June 02). A YANG Data Model for IPsec Flow Protection Based on Software-Defined Networking (SDN). Available online: https:\/\/www.rfc-editor.org\/info\/rfc9061."},{"key":"ref_46","unstructured":"Frankel, S., and Krishnan, S. (2024, May 03). IP Security (IPsec) and Internet Key Exchange (IKE) Document Roadmap. Available online: https:\/\/www.rfc-editor.org\/info\/rfc6071."},{"key":"ref_47","unstructured":"Brockners, F., Bhandari, S., Mizrahi, T., Dara, S., and Youell, S. (Internet Eng. Task Force, 2020). Proof of Transit. Internet-Draft draft-ietf-sfc-proof-of-transit-08, Internet Eng. Task Force, work in progress."},{"key":"ref_48","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Martinez, J.V., Forcada, M.A.E., Pastor, A., Lopez, D., and Alonso-L\u00f3pez, J.A. (2024, January 3\u20136). Implementation of a traffic flow path verification system in a data network. Proceedings of the 2024 Joint European Conference on Networks and Communications & 6G Summit (EuCNC\/6G Summit), Antwerp, Belgium.","DOI":"10.1109\/EuCNC\/6GSummit60053.2024.10597042"},{"key":"ref_49","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kourtis, M.A., Anagnostopoulos, T., Kuklilski, S., Wierzbicki, M., Oikonomakis, A., Xilouris, G., Chochliouros, I.P., Yi, N., Kostopoulos, A., and Tomaszewski, L. (2020, January 10\u201312). 5G Network Slicing Enabling Edge Services. Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE Conference on Network Function Virtualization and Software Defined Networks (NFV-SDN), Leganes, Spain.","DOI":"10.1109\/NFV-SDN50289.2020.9289880"},{"key":"ref_50","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Meneses, F., Fernandes, M., Corujo, D., and Aguiar, R.L. (2019, January 4\u20136). SliMANO: An Expandable Framework for the Management and Orchestration of End-to-end Network Slices. Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE 8th International Conference on Cloud Networking (CloudNet), Coimbra, Portugal.","DOI":"10.1109\/CloudNet47604.2019.9064072"},{"key":"ref_51","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Fern\u00e1ndez-Fern\u00e1ndez, A., Colman-Meixner, C., Ochoa-Aday, L., Betzler, A., Khalili, H., Siddiqui, M.S., Carrozzo, G., Figuerola, S., Nejabati, R., and Simeonidou, D. (2021). Validating a 5G-Enabled Neutral Host Framework in City-Wide Deployments. Sensors, 21.","DOI":"10.3390\/s21238103"}],"container-title":["Future Internet"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1999-5903\/17\/2\/86\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,9]],"date-time":"2025-10-09T16:32:12Z","timestamp":1760027532000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1999-5903\/17\/2\/86"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,2,12]]},"references-count":51,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,2]]}},"alternative-id":["fi17020086"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/fi17020086","relation":{},"ISSN":["1999-5903"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1999-5903","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2025,2,12]]}}}