The security pain points staring at telecom operators' networks are set to rise with the deployment and development of 5G technology. For instance, US-based AT&T currently faces nearly 10 billion security incidents a day.

The onset of new technology architecture as well as the prevalence of software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) have subsequently poised to increase network elements vulnerabilities.

With the evolving nature of network architecture, the 5G brings in more security threats unlike the previous generation of technology, and poses an ultimate risk as a multitude of services such as e-health, e-education and connected cars are set to become a mainstay.

However, the service providers, anticipating the network vulnerability, have already started to strategise in order to ensure optimum network safety, but a deadly threat looms at devices side that may also pose a life-threatening challenge.

The technology transition from 2G to finally a low-latency 5G would now offer ubiquitous connectivity enabling machine-to-machine or M2M communications\u2014 making a wide array of applications and devices to go live and talk with each other.

The bigger risk, however, is on the device front. The penetration of diverse devices and a bunch of utility applications are all set to capture, store and stream personal data seamlessly across locations, not only making data privacy at the epicenter but also device ecosystem unpreparedness to thwart attacks from multiple entry points has emerged as a key challenge.

The ecosystem is at a very nascent stage and the stakeholders are now readying their strategies in sync with a variety of Internet of Things (IoT) devices poised to cater to a whole lot of utility applications in sectors such as healthcare, education, agriculture, and home automation.

Cisco Systems that offers telecom networking portfolio believes that the security architecture must continue to evolve to discourage evident threats, and prescribes that threat intelligence must be at the core of an effective 5G security strategy.

Advanced malware, according to it, should be fixed that would require specially-designed tools to spot the stuff meant to evade basic filters, in addition to behavior-based checks on endpoints that are equally critical.

DNS or domain name system as a major threat route requires intelligence, and anomaly detection by using big data and machine learning to ascertain threats not covered by basic filters are some of the must-do tasks.

In the first half of 2019, the quantum of 5G devices grew rapidly, according to the UK-based group which attributed telecom service providers\u2019 aggressive commercial deployments of next-generation of services worldwide.

The GSA has identified 13 device form factors that have already marked their presence, and that includes cellphones, hotspots, laptops, modules, customer premise equipment (CPE), IoT routers, switches, drones, and USB terminals.

Back in India, the commercial 5G deployments are apparently no closer as the pilot initiatives with a trial spectrum are yet to kick start by the three dominant telecom carriers\u2014Reliance Jio Infocomm, Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel.

While India embarks on an ambitious 5G roadmap, it\u2019s high time for device ecosystem to come together and bring in fool-proof products to ride on next-generation of networks.","blog_img":"","posted_date":"2019-08-29 14:07:08","modified_date":"2019-09-09 13:04:26","featured":"0","status":"Y","seo_title":"Securing the devices in 5G era","seo_url":"securing-the-devices-in-5g-era","url":"\/\/www.iser-br.com\/tele-talk\/securing-the-devices-in-5g-era\/3748","url_seo":"securing-the-devices-in-5g-era"}">