US 12,170,691 B2
Mechanism for protecting front-haul link from man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack
Raghul Ravirajh, Bangalore (IN); Nagendra Bykampadi, Bangalore (IN); and Satish Balagopalan, Bangalore (IN)
Assigned to RAKUTEN SYMPHONY, INC., Tokyo (JP)
Appl. No. 17/918,836
Filed by Rakuten Symphony, Inc., Tokyo (JP)
PCT Filed Jul. 11, 2022, PCT No. PCT/US2022/036648
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Oct. 13, 2022,
PCT Pub. No. WO2023/191836, PCT Pub. Date Oct. 5, 2023.
Claims priority of application No. 202241019649 (IN), filed on Mar. 31, 2022.
Prior Publication US 2024/0223605 A1, Jul. 4, 2024
Int. Cl. H04L 9/40 (2022.01); H04W 12/12 (2021.01)
CPC H04L 63/1475 (2013.01) [H04W 12/12 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method, performed by at least one processor, for protecting a front-haul link from a Man-in-the-Middle (MiTM) attack, in a network communication system, the method comprising:
receiving, through a port of an authenticator, an authentication request for port authentication from a supplicant via an Ethernet Frame;
obtaining, by the authenticator from the Ethernet frame, a hop count corresponding to a number of hops in a transmission path of the Ethernet frame between the supplicant and the authenticator;
comparing the hop count to a predetermined threshold to determine whether the port should be disabled; and
disabling the port based on the hop count being greater than the predetermined threshold.