Keynote Speech: A Glimpse of 5G Security: Challenges and Opportunities
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Presented at EISIC 2019 by
The evolution of mobile telecommunication networks is accompanied by new demands for theperformance, portability, elasticity and energy efficiency of network functions. As a result, 5G mobilenetworks will adopt new networking concepts to improve the performance. The telecommunicationstandardization bodies are working on integrating novel networking concepts such as Software DefinedNetworking (SDN), Network Function Virtualization (NFV), Cloud Computing, Multi-access EdgeComputing (MEC) and Network Slicing principles to telecommunication networks. The target of suchefforts is to innovate and develop new network concepts for meeting the future requirements of theevolving mobile networks. Present-day, mobile networks are suffering from many security limitationssuch as Securing only the perimeter, Distributed and uncoordinated security mechanisms, tightlycoupled to physical resources, lack of adaptation and interoperability, over-provisioned securitymechanisms, vulnerability to various IP based attacks, lack of visibility and high network monitoringoverhead. The introduction of network softwarization, programmability, NFV, the separation of thecontrol and data planes, the introduction of new network functions and even the introduction of newstakeholders such as Mobile Virtual network Operators (MVNO) are expected to solve the securitylimitation of current telecommunication networks. Despite the expected advantages, the adaptation ofSDN, NFV, MEC and slicing concepts also brings many security disadvantages as well. For instance,adaptation of these technologies will minimize the technological gap between the common IP networksand 5G telecommunication networks. As a result, 5G mobile networks will be vulnerable to most theattacks which are available in general SDN and IP networks. Therefore, the introduction of all thesenew features have impact on how security needs to be assured and managed in 5G networks. This talkis not only focused on new opportunities but also new challenges and vulnerabilities related to 5Gsecurity.