Security officers must acknowledge 5G’s cybersecurity risks

With 5G on the horizon, security officers and enterprise leaders must embrace the technology while acknowledging the risk with their eyes wide open.

5G has the potential to disrupt industries, provide new routes for innovation and an array of new opportunities. Before we consider 5G’s potential, though, we must examine both cybersecurity and general risks.

5G will revolutionize entire industries, but attackers will always exploit new technology

5G will be a dramatic boost to the size and speed of 4G’s bandwidth, and will facilitate the scalability of many emerging technologies, for example, subscriber supervision tools for quick action.

Despite the benefits of 5G, security officers must acknowledge that cybercriminals will abuse any implementation weaknesses. This is not solely a cybersecurity issue; it’s a big-picture security issue. Let’s look at recent conflicts in the Middle East: It wasn’t long before insurgent forces were documented using common tools and gadgets from the civilian world, such as Google Earth, to range in mortars and drones to gather intelligence to pinpoint where to drop explosive devices. Bad guys can weaponize and harmfully exploit devices created with the most innocent of intentions.

IoT is a massive driver of 5G, but also poses a massive weakness—more devices mean more access points!

The vision of a futuristic and connected world is certainly appealing. 5G will facilitate this by allowing enterprises to hyperconnect more devices. These additional, more richly-connected devices could improve user convenience, productivity, engagement, and countless other aspects of life.

It is this rapidly-increasing number of devices connected to a single network that will be the weakness in an enterprise’s security armor. Cody Brocious, Head of Hacker Education at HackerOne, explained how IoT cybersecurity has always been poor. “In my opinion, the issue isn’t 5G security at all, but the security of the devices connected to a network. Data being transferred at a higher rate doesn’t mean more things will be hacked. 5G will also have more security functions and safety measures than previous iterations of cellular networks.”

Tom Lally, Vice President at DataSpan, Inc supports this statement. 5G won’t necessarily change the risk factors we have today and that we already see, “but it is going to exponentially increase the threat vectors and opportunities for attackers to exploit.”

Attackers seek dynamic approaches to making our lives as difficult as possible. The 2018 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report clarifies this and states that cybercriminals are attacking more frequently and diversifying their techniques. Attackers want to exploit any advantage they can, and weakly secured devices could be the backdoor they need to multiple parts of a network.

The speed of 5G is your frenemy—it requires sharper security reflexes

Attackers will take advantage of the increased speed and bandwidth of 5G, and their attacks will be swifter and more diverse. Moreover, the faster service that 5G provides could allow some attacks to go unnoticed for longer. Tom Lally believes, “At the end of the day, you’re still looking for anomalies; you’re just going to have more. So, the ability to swiftly identify and respond will be critical to minimizing risk.”

Personnel privacy and 5G abuse—attackers could monitor your behavior!

Weaknesses in IoT devices and increased network speeds could lead to breaches of personnel privacy, an issue that security officers and their enterprises must take seriously to protect their staff.

Sasa Radomirovic, a lecturer at the University of Dundee, has highlighted that attackers may seek to invade your privacy through 5G connected devices. Sasa goes on to suggest that technology may enable an attacker or company to watch or listen to you through devices such as smart TV’s.

Vivien Raoul, chief technology officer at Pradeo, notes that current mobile attacks largely work quietly in the background with little trace except a system slowdown. The speed of 5G might make it more difficult to detect such threats. Don’t underestimate this threat—Vizio had to pay $2.2 million to the Federal Trade Commission and the State of New Jersey after it was found to be collecting information on viewers in 2017.

5G will likely require many more cell towers to operate versus current standards. This has given birth to the idea that mobile carriers will be able to monitor your location more precisely due to the shorter range of the initial wireless 5G signals. Listening through devices on location monitoring are two obvious breaches of privacy that could compromise an enterprise or its staff. It will potentially lead to more focus on existing data privacy regulation and make compliance to standards like GDPR more of a strategic imperative.

The Huawei question—the uncertainty behind the organization makes it a risk

One of the big uncertainties surrounding 5G is the reliability of Chinese telco giant Huawei. It’s common knowledge that the organization is facing considerable criticism over its close connection to the Chinese government. The firm is developing the technology, but it has received backlash from some western countries. The United States and Australia have chosen not to use the firm, while hot debate rages in the UK to momentarily distract us from Brexit. It is feared that the firm will pass sensitive information to the Chinese government. At this moment, it would be sensible to acknowledge the uncertainty of the firm’s security or ability to operate in the western sphere. Whether some countries can take a massive delay to their 5G rollouts by totally rejecting Huawei remains to be seen.

The Bottom Line: 5G will test your security to its limit—be prepared

5G has the potential to have an incredibly positive influence on enterprises through interconnectivity and rapid speeds. However, the more we integrate, accelerate and simplify our data access, the greater the damage that cybercriminals can cause – their targets just become larger.

Evidence suggests 5G brings significant risk, meaning that security reflexes will need to sharpen as the speed and number of access points increase. It is not enough to educate enterprises leaders about the benefits of 5G—security officers must also consider the risks.