According to a small global survey, firms concerned about data privacy and security need specialist help to manage cyber risks.
In a survey of 400 senior leaders in manufacturing, power supply, oil and gas, and health care industries in the United States, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom on awareness of their employers’ private 5G implementation/deployment plans and privacy/security concerns, operating system software vulnerabilities were a major cyber concern.
In general, private 5G environments raise a different set of security issues than those in traditional IT and OT environments. The top concern regarding data privacy among the respondents (31%) was the exposure of data carried on the private wireless network.
Concerns over five top key attack vectors included:
- OS software vulnerabilities (37%)
- Configuration errors (34%)
- Networking equipment vulnerability (33%)
- Device vulnerabilities on RAN (31%) and CORE (27%) networks
- Compromise of connected network (27%)
Other concerns included:
- 23% expected full integration of private wireless network security with existing operational security; 55% also wanted to make this work via automated connections
- 58% of respondents indicated they would carry out risk assessments either jointly with partners or outsource the task completely, while 33% indicated they would work with a third party
- 24% of respondents looking for 5G security partners cited industry-specific security experience as the top criterion; 19% cited wanting to work with existing partners
Said Yohei Ishihara, Security Evangelist, Trend Micro, which commissioned the survey: “We see security risk management as one of the key drivers of the business. There (was) also a strong desire to focus on ensuring organizations achieve situational awareness across IT, OT, and CT communication technology, such as private 5G.”
The firm concludes that shared responsibility model of cloud computing means these respondents—which had great expectations for 5G security—will need to choose security partners that can ensure all 5G risks in the private network are addressed.
