5G-Shark Lures Phones to Rogue 5G Cells Without Network Jamming

Researchers published a preprint describing 5G‑Shark, a rogue‑cell technique that mimics legitimate operator broadcast parameters to attract nearby 5G phones without jamming or malformed messages. Once a phone reselects to the rogue cell, the attacker can collect temporary identifiers (GUTIs) and in some Non‑Standalone configurations permanent identifiers (IMSI), force downgrades to LTE/UMTS, trigger persistent registration loops or loss of connectivity, and enable short‑duration tracking or DoS effects; tests used several popular phones and three anonymized Tier‑1 carriers and required only brief (≈1 minute) broadcasts.