The National Institute of Standards and Technology has published a new white paper on securing 5G networks from cyberthreats.
Developed by the NIST National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, or NCCoE, the 5G Network Security Design Principles white paper provides network infrastructure security design principles for commercial and private 5G network operators.
The 12-page document is part of the Applying 5G Cybersecurity and Privacy Capabilities white paper series, which provides resources for commercial mobile network operators, private 5G network operators and organizations using 5G-enabled technologies.
How to Bolster Cybersecurity & Privacy in a 5G Network
The white paper addresses the challenges that data centers and cloud environments, which typically use the same physical connections and the same network devices to process traffic. According to the document, because there is no way to physically separate 5G traffic from other types of traffic and segregate types of 5G traffic from one another, organizations must apply methods. Doing so could reduce the risk of cyberattacks from spreading across network segments and ease the integration of cybersecurity tools and techniques for each traffic.
The different types of 5G network traffic are data plane, signaling, and operation and maintenance.
NIST’s secure network design principles guide readers on how to ensure the logical separation of 5G traffic. NCCoE even provides a look into how its underlying network infrastructure works to segregate data plane, signaling and O&M traffic.
The agency said its principles are tested, but the public are welcome to submit their comment about the white paper until July 17.
