My secondment at Montimage, Paris, has marked an exciting and technically enriching chapter in my Ph.D. journey. Funded by the ENSURE-6G Staff Exchange Programme, my research over the last two months has focused on network monitoring and the development of future-generation network datasets. After an incredible period of living and working in Paris, this blog post will summarize the technical milestones achieved and reflect on the invaluable experience of merging academic research with industrial innovation.
RRC Signalling Storm Attacks in 5G O-RAN
As discussed in my previous post, the collaboration between my research and Montimage’s expertise aligned strongly in the areas of network traffic analysis and AI/ML-driven security. Montimage’s open-source tools, including the Montimage AI Platform (MAIP) and MMT-Probe, provided rich capabilities for data capture, filtering, storage, traffic analysis, and multi-level event correlation across network, flow, application, and user layers.
During my stay, my work focused on the analysis and detection of RRC Signalling Storm attacks in a 5G O-RAN context through dataset construction and AI/ML model development. Experiments involved collecting both radio-level signalling information and network-level traffic data, enabling a cross-layer perspective of attack behaviour.
The technicalities of dataset development involved transforming raw data into structured tabular formats, filtering for relevant protocols, implementing a robust data quality plan, and conducting exploratory data analysis to distinguish between benign and malicious network behaviours. To share these novel results with the wider scientific community, this work is currently being prepared for submission to the IFIP 2026 conference.
Concluding Thoughts and Reflections
As I wrap up my time in Paris, I reflect on the value of working with industry in highly demanding, next-generation fields. One of the greatest benefits of this secondment was the seamless bridge it created between academic research and industrial implementation. Collaborating closely with Montimage’s AI and development teams allowed me to refine theoretical concepts into practical, deployable solutions. I received exceptional mentorship from industry experts in network security, AI model validation, and protocol analysis, while actively contributing my own research insights to the team.
Beyond technical results, this work reinforces a core ENSURE-6G principle: that high-quality monitoring and robust data engineering are prerequisites for reliable AI-driven security in 6G systems. By combining expertise across partners and disciplines, ENSURE-6G moves closer to delivering deployable, resilient, and trustworthy security solutions for future networks.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the entire Montimage team for their warm welcome, technical guidance, and collaborative spirit.
