Surveyed CSPs believe that 5g standalone deployments will increase security vulnerabilities due to fragmentation of network components and the ability of industrial enterprises to connect their mission-critical assets to their networks.
New Delhi: Communication service providers (CSP) across the world need robust 5G network security capabilities in the face of increasing incidents of cyber breaches, according to research conducted by GlobalData commissioned by Finnish telecom gear maker Nokia. 56% of CSPs surveyed said they want to “significantly improve” their cyber capabilities against telecom-specific attacks, while 68% said they want to “sharpen their defenses” against ransomware threats.
Phishing, social engineering, application layer attacks, malware, identity theft, denial of service (DoS) and misconfiguration are some of the other areas where CSPs believe they need to significantly improve their capabilities. Three-quarters of CSPs say their networks have experienced at least six security breaches in the past year, resulting in regulatory liability, fraud and monetary theft – taking the network offline.
Most (42%) respondents said fragmented security tools make it difficult to effectively implement security capabilities and use cases across different systems, while 28% said it is difficult to rapidly transition to containerized security tools. environments, and 22% stated that security tools do not effectively protect against evolving security threats – some of the challenges highlighted in the findings.
The research further emphasizes that CSPs will seek to increase security participation over the next 1-3 years by managing third-party threats, zero-day malware and exploits, and telecom protocol/interface vulnerabilities.
Surveyed CSPs believe that 5G standalone (SA) deployments will increase security vulnerabilities due to the fragmentation of network components and industrial enterprises that connect their mission-critical assets to their networks. “Our survey shows that CSP security personnel are doing as much as they can with the people and tools they have. But as CSP services proliferate, vulnerabilities will grow if they don’t automate their security processes,” said Andy Hicks, principal analyst at GlobalData.
“The significant changes taking place in the 5G ecosystem are bringing new dimensions to the telecom threat landscape and providing opportunities for malicious actors to exploit network security flaws,” said Vishal Sahai, Head of Managed Security Services, Cloud and Cognitive Services at Nokia.
The findings reinforce the critical need for CSPs and organizations to improve their cyber defense practices and rethink the tools and processes they are using to strengthen their security capabilities, Sahai added.