5G, an advanced wireless technology, promises low latency, high speeds, and more reliable connectivity. A new report, however, warns that the next-gen technology is likely to bring new security threats such as outages, nefarious activities and physical attacks.
In its Nov. 21 “ENISA Threat Landscape for 5G Networks” report, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) draws an initial threat landscape and presents an overview of the security challenges in 5G networks. Its benefit lies with the creation of a comprehensive 5G architecture, the identification of important assets (asset diagram), the assessment of threats affecting 5G (threat taxonomy), the identification of asset exposure (threats – assets mapping) and an initial assessment of threat agent motives.
Significantly, the report describes a taxonomy of threats to simplify the task of defining the broad and complex threat landscape, focusing on specific components of the 5G infrastructure. At a high level, the taxonomy lists nine threat areas. These threats are honed further by categorizing them based on whether the target is part of a core network, radio access, network virtualization or a generic component.
According to ENISA, the threat agents defined in the report as human or software agents that may wish to abuse, compromise or damage assets, will also evolve. To address and combat these new threats and agents, the report recommends that 5G ecosystem stakeholders share threat knowledge with one another. Additionally, develop working relationships to create an efficient network of experts in various domains. The network will be responsible for contributing to the creation of 5G Cyberthreat Intelligence and improving the standards and other materials on cyber threats.
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