A new report published by the Na onal Security Agency (NSA), the Cybersecurity
and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Office of the Director of
Na onal Intelligence (ODNI) warns that there are security risks to implemen ng
5G network slicing and says that if operators do not carefully manage 5G network
slicing they may inadvertently allow malicious actors to access data from different
network slices.
Network slicing allows operators to par on the network into segments for
certain use cases and each network segment can be customized. The benefit
of network slicing is that it allows each slice to use at least some of the same
underlying common network infrastructure, which makes it more efficient and
cost effec ve than building separate networks for each use case.
Network slicing is considered one of the more prominent a ributes of deploying
a standalone (SA) 5G network but has yet to be deployed commercially in the
U.S. although Dish Network, which is in the midst of rolling out a na onwide SA
network, o en talks about its network slicing aspira ons.
But making sure each network slice is secure is a difficult task. According to the
report from the NSA, CISA and ODNI, there are no specifica ons telling operators
how to develop and implement security for network slicing. And these agencies
fear that this lack of specifica ons will lead to security breaches.
The three most likely types of threats to occur in a 5G network slicing scenario,
according to the report are:
• Denial of service a acks on centralized control elements that lead to services
being disrupted
• A acks on misconfigured system controls, which causes the network slice to
be made unavailable to legi mate users.
• Man-in-the-middle a acks, in which confiden al informa on or user data is
exposed or messages are modified resul ng in misinforma on.
The report also said that not only could network slices be vulnerable to these
types of a acks but it's possible that bad actors could chain together mul ple
a acks and the implica ons could reach beyond a single network slice.
Because the security threats to network slicing are so cri cal, the report
recommends that operators implement four layers of security that cover the
virtualized network func ons (VNF) instances and related connec ons, the
transport network, the core network and all the network slice subsets. In
addi on, the report recommends that operators con nually monitor network
slices for malicious ac vity by using mul ple network monitoring solu ons.
Ar cle Credit: h ps://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/report-network-slicing-
leaves-operators-vulnerable-breaches
Report: Network slicing
leaves operators
vulnerable to breaches
Network slicing allows operators to par on the
network into segments for certain use cases and
each network segment can be customized.
Talleycom.com
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QUARTER 4 2022
