While awareness of 5G-related cybersecurity risks is high among
enterprises, more needs to be done to prepare, according to a new report
from AT&T’s cybersecurity unit, which suggested implementing tools
like virtualization and automation.
In AT&T’s most recent Cybersecurity Insights Report,
based on a survey by 451 Research, nearly three-quarters of respondents
indicated medium-high or high level of concern in terms of the
potential impact of 5G on security and 76% expect brand-new security
threats to emerge from 5G.
The communications market was most concerned, with 54% expecting 5G
to have a very significant impact on the network that might require a
new security stack or an entirely new set of processes, compared with
42% of respondents overall.
The survey was conducted in August and September 2019 and polled 704 security professionals located in North America, India, UK, and Australia, from organizations with at least 500 employees and across sectors such as manufacturing and construction, communications, financial services, and technology, among others.
5G is unique in that security features are baked into the 3GPP 5G standard, including stronger over-the-air encryption and subscriber identity privacy to help ensure 5G devices are connecting to the right network, but AT&T said standards alone are not enough to handle all business security needs.
With 5G comes more avenues for cyber-attacks on enterprises due in part to the potential for a larger attack surface and a greater number of connected devices, AT&T noted.
In terms of what enterprises are worried about, the aforementioned issues ranked highest for top security concerns, with 44% citing a larger attack surface due to the massive increase in connectivity, and 39% naming concern over a greater number of devices accessing the network, followed by the need to extend security policy to IoT devices (36%). See the graph below for other concerns respondents cited as top security concerns regarding 5G.
Frequency of top 3 concerns for enterprises 5G. (AT&T Cybersecurity Insights Report 2019)
Most surveyed are getting ready for 5G-related security changes, with 16% already implementing changes and 38% expected to start within the next 6 months. Another 35% said they will start in the next 1-2 years. Still, three-quarters believe current security policies will either continue to be effective as 5G rolls outs (22%) or will need tweaks, but without major changes (53%).
Source: Fierce Wireless
The communications market was most concerned, with 54% expecting 5G
to have a very significant impact on the network that might require a
new security stack or an entirely new set of processes, compared with
42% of respondents overall. The survey was conducted in August and September 2019 and polled 704 security professionals located in North America, India, UK, and Australia, from organizations with at least 500 employees and across sectors such as manufacturing and construction, communications, financial services, and technology, among others.
5G is unique in that security features are baked into the 3GPP 5G standard, including stronger over-the-air encryption and subscriber identity privacy to help ensure 5G devices are connecting to the right network, but AT&T said standards alone are not enough to handle all business security needs.
With 5G comes more avenues for cyber-attacks on enterprises due in part to the potential for a larger attack surface and a greater number of connected devices, AT&T noted.
In terms of what enterprises are worried about, the aforementioned issues ranked highest for top security concerns, with 44% citing a larger attack surface due to the massive increase in connectivity, and 39% naming concern over a greater number of devices accessing the network, followed by the need to extend security policy to IoT devices (36%). See the graph below for other concerns respondents cited as top security concerns regarding 5G.
Most surveyed are getting ready for 5G-related security changes, with 16% already implementing changes and 38% expected to start within the next 6 months. Another 35% said they will start in the next 1-2 years. Still, three-quarters believe current security policies will either continue to be effective as 5G rolls outs (22%) or will need tweaks, but without major changes (53%).
Source: Fierce Wireless
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