The Impact of 5G in Cybersecurity
Everyone wants 5G, and the hype surrounding its launch only continues to grow. Wireless providers have promised that the 5G rollout will bring faster speeds, instantaneous communication and global interconnectivity. This next generation of wireless connectivity is expected to be game-changing, not only because of what it can do, but how it may change the world as we know it – including that of cybersecurity.
The emergence of this technology will open the door to new threats. Geoffrey R. Morgan, founding partner at Fairchild Morgan Law, said the introduction of 5G technology will cause a dramatic rise in cybersecurity concerns. With billions of connected devices, hackers can easily go undetected as it will be more difficult to spot abnormalities in user behavior. The large number of devices that are powered and synced to the same network will also pose potential vulnerabilities for the network at large, according to Morgan.
5G also opens the door to new possibilities including self-driving cars and remote surgeries. As these services emerge, they can introduce many cybersecurity challenges. Self-driving cars are reliant on mobile network connections to function. If these networks are disrupted by hackers, the potential of life-damaging incidents can arise. To protect against these threats, more security is required to regulate high-performance networks, and organizations will need to restructure their cybersecurity strategies.
Additionally, security solutions will need to become smarter in order to keep up with increased bandwidth. While 5G bandwidth speeds are extremely appealing to consumers, it raises capability concerns. Monitoring traffic in real time will become difficult on 5G networks which handle more traffic at once. Network performance monitors will need to adapt to the number of devices supported by 5G networks to avoid overloading and security breaches.
However, the emergence of 5G is not all bad. The 5G network architecture allows new security models for user privacy, threat detection and identity management. By using secure identity management to authenticate users, 5G systems can ensure that genuine users can access services.
The next generation of mobile connectivity will have positive and negative impacts on the security industry. While there is still time to prepare ourselves for the next generation of wireless connectivity, it’s difficult to predict how many adoption challenges the security industry will face.
