Four ways in which 5G changes the enterprise threat model

With the widespread adoption of 5G globally, enterprise organizations need to seriously consider the security risks associated with the deployment of this technology.

In the coming years, it is expected that 5G networks will play a key role in new digital transformation plans and new business cases beyond the capabilities of 4G network technology. The main factor driving this change is the speed of 5G, now up to 1Gbps, with a latency of 1 millisecond. Compared to 4G, it can connect about 100 times more devices per unit area.

Katell Thielemann, vice president of Gartner Research, said that the first impact of 5G will take the form of enhanced mobile broadband services, which are ten times faster than current technology. In the long term, it is expected that 5G will provide ultra-reliable low-latency communication for applications such as autonomous vehicles, and support large-scale machine-to-machine networks through billions of connected sensors and other devices.

Many of the functions require a long time to be fully realized. Although the promotion of 5G has spread, communication service providers are still building 5G networks, and some standards related to this technology are also constantly evolving. Analysts say, even so, security is still an issue that organizations should plan for immediately.

Thielemann said: '5G is both an accelerator for technology deployment and a warning from a security perspective. Compared to the considerations of speed and cost in the market, security considerations are more important.'

According to the views of Thielemann et al., the following are the key security considerations that enterprises should keep in mind when deploying 5G technology.

Endpoint device security

The high speed and high bandwidth advantages of 5G networks will prompt organizations to connect large-scale sensors and other devices to the internet. To facilitate various uses, 5G networks will enable organizations to deploy powerful connected devices worldwide, from monitoring industrial control systems to tracking containers and climate, and enable new smartphone and tablet applications.

It is now very important to protect these devices (whether at the physical or virtual layer). Scott Crawford, an analyst at 451 Research, said that malicious attackers who penetrate these connected devices can cause greater damage.

Crawford said, 'With the 5G network, more computing functions can be deployed on endpoints,' which means that organizations will need to pay more attention to tasks such as identifying and verifying endpoints to ensure that connected devices comply with security policies before interacting with other devices or sensitive data.

Due to the unimaginable consequences of endpoint harm, organizations need to pay more attention to enabling endpoint visibility and monitoring suspicious behavior of connected 'objects' on the 5G network. Issues such as the functions and features of these endpoints and networks, how they pose risks to organizations, and how to mitigate these risks are all issues that need to be addressed.

A larger attack surface

With the increase in the number of functions and connected devices on the 5G network, attackers will have more targets to attack, and organizations will need to protect a larger area. Crawford said:

Jason Haward-Grau, CISO of PAS Global, said:

The coordinated report by the European Commission and the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity on 5G security risks in October 2019 shows that the software-centric nature of 5G networks will increase risks such as software development and update processes, configuration errors, and other vulnerabilities related to vulnerabilities.

Demand for skilled talent

Haward-Grau said that IT operation teams proficient in wireless networks and standard hard cable networks may face challenges related to some new features of 5G (at least initial challenges).

Haward-Grau said that organizations should ask how to ensure the correct control and management of the use of new technologies in the environment.

The EU report identifies multiple potential issues related to the lack of 5G experts in the coming years. These include poorly designed and misconfigured networks, poor access control mechanisms, and weaknesses in the security measures and processes adopted by mobile network operators. The report points out that due to the lack of experts familiar with some of the new features of 5G networks, human errors are likely to increase.

The report states that 'the rapidly evolving threat landscape and technology and the complexity of 5G networks will lead to an increased demand for IT security professionals with expertise in cloud architecture and other areas.'

Thielemann said that 5G represents a shift from a centralized center radiation design with checkable hardware switches and choke points to a gradually variable, distributed, and software-defined digital routing infrastructure. 'Attackers who control the network software can also control the network.'

Mobile network operators will need to rely on third-party component suppliers, so enterprises need to pay more attention to supply chain risk management. The EU Cybersecurity Committee warned that attackers, especially state-supported hackers, may try to exploit the weaknesses of the supply chain to attack telecommunications networks. Since 5G networks will mainly be based on software, attackers can try to insert hard-to-find backdoors into the 5G features of products provided by service providers.

New considerations in industrial and OT networks

5G will reduce the demand for traditional IT infrastructure and enable organizations to deploy industrial IoT devices more effectively across the entire operational technology (OT) domain. This technology will make it easier to connect and collect data in the entire OT environment, thus helping to implement the tasks of big data plans. However, Haward-Grau believes that it is precisely because of these advantages that new uncertainties and challenges will arise.

One of the biggest concerns is that 5G network technology may help to achieve direct real-time access to physical devices and modern network connections. He said: 'The traditional thinking is that a 'wall' is set up in the ICS environment, and effective firewalls and network isolation are used as key protection mechanisms for critical processes, which are designed with a focus on both safety and efficiency, not just safety.' The 5G network will allow access to any place in the network, including parts that may not have been digitalized before, which is a risk. For decades, independent protection layers have been the core of industrial operations and security, and now they will face new pressures.

Haward-Grau said that in dealing with these risks, organizations need to pay more attention to data integrity through the regulatory chain. 'If data no longer flows into the network from the sensor's endpoint, how will it flow into the enterprise?'

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