At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in the US, telemedicine became a vital lifeline for people who needed to see doctors, and also avoid exposure to Covid-19. According to one survey, while 22 percent of physicians used telehealth to see patients in 2019, that jumped to 80 percent in 2020. Many doctors across the US may like to see virtual visits continue and become a new standard of care in many instances.
One critical missing piece is fifth-generation wireless technology (5G). 5G provides for faster speeds and lower latency, and the urgency to roll it out as quickly as possible is heating up competition among network providers, private enterprise, and countries. Instead of having to go in-office for a doctor to collect vitals like your heart rate and blood pressure, 5G-connected devices and apps can gather that data and stream it to your primary care provider. The ability to access quality health care on-the-go or from the comfort of your living room is just one example of 5G’s benefits.
“What makes 5G distinct is its much greater bandwidth and lower latency; its ability to enable real-time or near-real-time communication. Health care is just one example of the benefits that 5G can deliver. 5G speeds can power smart grids for more efficient delivery of electricity; self-driving cars that turn on a dime; and high-quality AR/VR experiences for everything from training first responders to gaming. Technologies that require that kind of very low latency also require continuous monitoring and protection,” says Wendy Frank, the Cyber 5G leader in the Cyber & Strategic Risk Practice of Deloitte Risk & Financial Advisory and a principal with Deloitte & Touche.
Not only is the potential for 5G enormous, but also the pace at which we’re arriving is a genuine cause for excitement. In just over a decade, beginning in the late 1990s, the world moved from developing technical specifications for 3G cellular networks to updating those specifications for 4G and LTE-advanced networks. Over the next decade, 5G availability will likely increase rapidly; some estimates suggest that by 2023, the number of networked devices may reach 29.3 billion —that’s three times the human population on the planet.
“Realizing 5G’s true potential will require clearing hurdles related to costs, manufacturing, and cybersecurity,” says Anil Ramcharan, Deloitte & Touche principal in the Defense, Security, and Justice sector of Deloitte's Cyber Risk Services. “The software-based nature of 5G requires a new class of cybersecurity infrastructure. But while this can create uncertainty among organizations, it can also create opportunity.”
The Catch 22 of 5G’s Speed
Cyber risk on forthcoming 5G networks will have to be mitigated at a variety of points. The 4G LTE technology that businesses and consumers in the US now use is centralized and hardware-based, with physical components and controls. By nature, these networks contain choke points, such as secure gateways, firewalls, access lists and, policies that can reduce malicious cyberattacks before they spread too far.
The decentralized nature of 5G networks with its loosely-coupled architecture enables it to span across multiple clouds and edge locations. 5G’s distributed deployments enhance network redundancy and improve resiliency to infrastructure failures, but they also expand the attack surface. And since the underlying 5G network functions use cloud-based and edge computing, 5G network operators will be required to regularly update and secure any new 5G and cloud assets as releases become available to secure the ecosystem.
“In preparing to use 5G, organizations should pay close attention to the software-defined aspect of 5G infrastructure,” says Deborah Golden, Deloitte’s US Cyber & Strategic Risk leader. “It is very different than the Wi-Fi and 4G networks. Implementing 5G network security requires a risk management framework that adapts to the flexibility and programmability of network services and traffic flows in software-defined networks.”
With 5G adoption and the transition from hardware to software-defined networks and interoperability between 4G, Wi-Fi and 5G, the concepts of resiliency, redundancy, and reliability move front and center according to Ramcharan. 5G adopters may need to put safeguards in place to confirm that the quality of service that 5G provides is sustainable within and across organizations, industries, and geographies.
Developing 5G With Security and Privacy in Mind
While the full scope of 5G might take years to realize, some consumers around the world already have access to 5G networks through a telecom provider. If you’re one of these consumers, you should know that 5G has some inherent benefits. Better security and privacy enhancements are being baked into the 5G standards, such as stronger encryption and privacy protection of user equipment identities associated with our phones and connected devices.
One of the inherent vulnerabilities in 4G and LTE networks is that a subscriber’s specific identifier could be exposed. In contrast, 5G protocol provides better privacy for its users and supports stronger cyphering algorithms. Organizations will have the ability to encrypt data when it’s at rest and in transit with more advanced 256-bit encryption keys. Stronger encryption is essential to preserving the privacy and integrity of data and building confidence in 5G among consumers and public- and private-sector organizations. In addition, 5G’s unified authentication framework improves usability, connectivity, and endpoint security by allowing open and network-agnostic authentication with 4G, LTE, Wi-Fi, and cable networks.
“5G is built for efficient network slicing, which allows customers to segregate sensitive and more generic data and provide precise security and privacy controls in the different slices. 5G also includes an edge protection proxy that securely interconnects different networks to help maintain data consistency, accuracy, and integrity. The concerns about complexity and the 5G networks’ expanded attack surface shouldn’t overshadow the security improvements built into the protocol. An important part of our discussions with customers is how to design and build in 5G security from the start,” Frank says.
As 5G networks increasingly come online, researchers and security practitioners will likely continue to discover ways to make them more secure, trustworthy, and resilient. As organizations start to leverage innovative digital technologies and 5G’s increased bandwidth to generate more and better data, potential privacy issues and IoT security may have to be addressed. Ramcharan believes 5G’s capabilities will continue to drive adoption forward, and cybersecurity will need to keep pace.
This article was produced by WIRED Brand Lab on behalf of Deloitte.
