A comparison of 4G and 5G authentication methods

3GPP Standards has developed a new authentication framework for the fifth generation (5G) network that significantly improves the security posture compared to previous generations. In this paper we describe the authentication procedures for 4G (EPS-AKA) and 5G (5G AKA, EAP-AKA prime, EAP-TLS) and provide a comparison of all the variants at each node level.