Cyber Security
5G: Are we cyber ready? By Mohiuddin Ahmed, PhD Academic Centre of Cyber Security Excellence, School of Science, Edith Cowan University, Australia
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urely 5G has been able to draw our attention from a plethora of other things. But it does not mean that we are going to be able to keep up with the pace of 5G. The telecom operators are going to allure mass population with mind-blowing TVCs. And surely, we are going to fall for it. But in 2020, we are responsible for the consequences of 5G even as user and cannot just play the consumer rights card. So, what makes 5G so special and how it supersedes its predecessors. For mass users, the Internet speed is going to be the primary selling point. 5G offers dramatic bandwidth expansion and believed to be 100 times faster than 4G! The video streaming and heavy file downloads are going to be two of the key observable differences in redefining user experience of it. For example, to download a two-hour film over 3G network it takes 26 hours, for 4G, 6 minutes and 5G network requires only 3.6 seconds according to Consumer Technology Association: https://www.cta.tech/. It’s just not the Internet speed that is going to be upgraded, the response time is also going to be 400 times faster than 4G as per MICROCOMMS: https:// www.microcomms.co.uk/. Therefore, the mass users will experience a far better Internet of Things. For example, the autonomous vehicles such as drones, cars require continuous stream of data, therefore the faster the data is communicated, the better and safer the vehicles can
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operate. Consequently, the defence, finance, governance, healthcare, educational and many other sectors are going to be enjoying the benefits of 5G. So, what is the secret sauce in 5G? Unlike its predecessors, 5G is software driven, i.e. the physical infrastructure will not be affected for any upgrades. Just like our smart phones, we only need to update our apps, driver software etc. not the phone every now and then. 5G is going to significantly reduce the maintenance and upgrade costs for the service providers. To dig a little deeper, the traditional enterprise network requires hardware-based core networking components. These components such as hubs, routers securitize the network traffic and ensure smooth routing operation. However, in 5G, these components are replaced by software driven approaches and follows digital routing. Additionally, the concept of network virtualization is also well accepted in 5G to offer the benefits mentioned earlier. In a nutshell, 5G is going to provide a more engaging and richer web experience. Despite these mind-boggling amenities, the cyber security issues raised by 5G should not be an afterthought. The velocity of 5G is indeed a threat to us if not handled well. A hasty 5G deployment will create a catastrophe and haphazard cyber space! Let us consider the dark sides of 5G as we do not live in a perfect world and cyber criminals
