Overview of 5G Security Challenges and Solutions

5G is known as 5th generation of mobile network introduced to the international industries of telecommunication sectors as well as to the consumer as the main driver for the new era of 4th Industry Revolution (4IR). As the latest standard of wireless communication through mobile network, 5G is known to be the greatest evolution from 1G, 2G, 3G and 4G (with LTE) that has the capabilities to deliver higher multi-Gbps peak data speeds, ultra-low latency in its performance, reliable in delivering multimedia contents with massive network capacity, better availability and better user experience when streaming online contents.

History that corelates to the invention of 5G were originates from the communities known as 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) drives by the GSMA (Groupe Spécial Mobile Association) technical working group consist of international equipment telecommunication vendor, services providers, government agencies and NGOs.  

The 5G wireless mobile network technology enable all forms of communication between human and technology by connecting all of them seamlessly via mobile communication networks. Unlike 4G and other previous mobile network generations, 5G enable technology integration for new and existing technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices, autonomous technologies, and smart city. The broader range of services offered by 5G networks supersedes cyber security solutions and architectures of previous networks. This article provides an overview of 5G technologies, cybersecurity challenges and the possible solutions.

5G Technology Overview

5G is known as the fifth generation of mobile network that evolved from its predecessors of 1G, 2G, 3G and 4G. As the first generation of mobile network, 1G introduce a proper platform of wireless communication through mobile network. Enable consumer to communicate through voice call on the mobile wireless network. 2G is the evolution of 1G from the perspectives of data transmission with uses cases of text messaging. Consumer are given the features of sending text messages through mobile network as well as the introduction to multimedia messaging with content such as pictures and audio. As the 3G introduced to the mobile carriers as telecommunication service providers, multimedia content evolved by the initiative of browsing the internet through the phone. Smartphone concepts arise during this era, where consumer can browse the internet on their phone, plus with better multimedia messaging. 3G has gone through longer adoption in these evolution eras compared to 1G and 2G. 

As the demand of more content and more data usage via mobile devices, 4G with LTE were introduces to replace the 3G overloaded operations, where consumer communicates more data through the mobile devices. Improved version of 3G, 4G gives the social communication platforms such as social media, blog, video streaming platforms etc. a new breakthrough where, faster internet connection are provided by 4G technology. As the demands goes higher, LTE as improved 4G technology are born. 

Unlike 4G and 3G, where multimedia content and social media communications as their breakthrough in technology for telecommunication industry; 5G meant to gives better quality services where 4G unable to serve the consumer demands. With 4G LTE, faster connectivity has been achieved, but for consumer, not good enough. 5G gives them the needs of more data and faster connectivity, thus allowing them to have live controls on the multimedia content itself, rather than just receiving it. 5G are meant to enable consumer bi-directional communication between the individual and the technology (system, devices etc) which enable the user to control the communication just from the palm of their hands.

5G Use Cases

The following are the list of possible uses cases of 5G mobile network technology that are applicable to the industries sectors relates to the technologies implemented relevant to 4IR. 

Table 1: 5G Use Cases

5G CyberSecurity Challenges

Unlike other mobile network technologies and wireless network technologies, 5G technology and its capabilities is not far away from the danger of cybersecurity threats. As the mobile network evolved, the network becomes more reliable that by providing faster network speed and enables multiple technologies connected inclusive of consumer as the user. 5G allows all network connected technologies to interact with each other with unlimited boundaries leads to large form of opportunity for attacker and threats to be lurking in 5G mobile network. 

One of the cybersecurity challenges due to the introduction of massive devices interconnected is the new security vulnerabilities and attacks. Devices communicates and performed automation without the interaction of human being leads to the creation of new loopholes for cyber-attacks. Without the human intervention in the communication allows plenty of technical flaws that open the opportunity for attackers to compromise the automated devices which may goes unnoticed that leads to massive damage, impacting the industries and institutions.

In addition, 5G comes with the new technology called as advanced data transmissions which allows data transfer flows seamlessly, faster and enables proficiency in mobile network connectivity. It uses software-defined networking that leverages the cloud computing software defines network (SDN) advancement similar to mobile edge computing. 5G core networks enables cloud computing capabilities that allows efficient data processing through cloud SDN that managed subscriber information, mobile devices management and subscriber billing information. These sensitive data are at risk of security breaches if the 5G core network is not properly configured. Cloud computing security control implementation needs to be enforced to mitigate this risk.

Furthermore, through the efficient network connectivity of 5G, high speed data transfer enables consumer to communicate quickly, allows the increase of productivity and efficiency. However, high speed data transfer allows large volume of data being transferred that leads to data exfiltration. As a result, consumer are open to vulnerability exploitation and cyber-attacks such as accidental malware application downloads which leads to faster spread of computer virus. Additionally, unnoticed denial of service attacks (DoS) and others, which may cause disruption to business operation. 

With ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC), 5G mobile network enables live communication capabilities that allows telemedicine to perform remote surgeries for medical professionals, plus enables the feasibility of autonomous vehicles to operate on the road with higher efficiency. With high speed data transfer supported with low latency capabilities, all devices in the 5G network are open for cyber-attacks such as malware spreading in the network, large scale of denial of service attacks (DoS), privacy compromise due to unwanted cross data sharing, data disclosure of devices due to no IP address protection and other threats that likely to be risky for 5G consumer. 

5G Proposed Cybersecurity Solutions

Along the implementation and introduction of 5G technology, definitely the new mobile network will bring efficiency and better communication lifestyle to the consumer. Through trial 5G deployment projects, adoption period and acceptance by local community on the 5G technology, whilst cybersecurity for 5G, need to be in place by allowing secure ecosystem for the mobile network which can bring comfort for the IT consumer in using the new mobile network. In this article, three cybersecurity solutions on the key main contributors are proposed for better 5G secure ecosystem. 

Firstly, by understanding the 5G enabled Software-Defined Networking (SDN) security capabilities via the implementation for cloud network security controls, can become one of the potential cybersecurity solutions to be implemented in 5G mobile network technology. By understanding the security features of SDN from the view of defining stages of secure virtualization network, monitoring through information gathering intelligence of the network resources, network learning states and flows, whilst the secure architecture of SDN provides network-wide consistent security policies and supports instant threat identification. In addition, secure SDN architecture supports extremely reactive and proactive security monitoring, traffic analysis, and reaction systems to ease network forensics, changes in security policies, and new security service(s) insertion.

Secondly, infrastructure-level attacks on 5G mobile network can be avoided by continuous monitoring on user’s resource consumption and blocking malicious requests based on an IP address blacklisting using the Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) security controls. The NFV architecture with its security controls protect virtual functions in the physical entities in a communications network. Insider threats can also be mitigated by the NFV security function through the use of identity and access management methods. Infrastructure-level attacks can be avoided by continuously monitoring subscribers and operator resources consumption with the capability of blocking malicious requests based on an IP address blacklisting.

Thirdly, as for location privacy, anonymity-based approaches are recommended to be implement, in which the subscriber’s real identity is masked, and pseudonyms method is being used instead. In this circumstance, enabling security control via encryption-based procedures are advantageous by enabling all communication are encrypted before being sent to a Location-Based Services (LBS) provider. In addition, common location privacy threats such as timing and boundary attacks, can be mitigated by using location cloaking methods.

Aside of these proposed cybersecurity solutions, mobile equipment vendor as one of the stakeholders in 5G ecosystem deployed shall also contributes to ensure all the products developed by them run through a proper security evaluation and testing by 3^rd party labs. Promoting secure 5G ecosystem mobile network comes from two domains, which are the secure deployment of systems and secure mobile equipment usage. Getting certification such as NESAS and Common Criteria for mobile network equipment leads to better assurance of 5G secure ecosystem implementation. 

Overall, there are others vulnerability, threats and risks are being concerns upon the adoption of 5G technology as the technology grows through its maturity of consumer acceptance. From time to time, cybersecurity controls and solution shall be part of the 5G deployment and implementation in assuring the 5G mobile network ecosystem is safe for the cyber-attacks.

Conclusion

5G is the driver for industry changes that uses enhanced cloud computing technologies, including Software-Define Networking (SDN), Network function virtualization (NFV), and mobile clouds, to support the operations of mobile consumer, IoT devices and other system with relevant services. All these connected technologies with have their own set of security issues that may leads to insecure and untrusted network. The integration of various devices, services, and new networking technologies increases security threats, necessitating the development of new security solutions for efficiency and secure communication in industries and organizations. Thus, the cruciality of cybersecurity for mobile network ecosystem specific to 5G need to be aligned with the technology implementation drivers from consumer, government agencies and service providers.

References

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