The AT&T Cybersecurity Insights Report examines 5G security readiness and has found that many businesses aren’t prepared for the huge data upgrade.
The AT&T report discovered that enterprises are lagging significantly behind on expanding their virtualization and software-defined networking capabilities. On top of this, businesses are not taking the opportunity to automate security.
About the report
The report was built using data from 704 cybersecurity professionals from around the globe, all work for organizations with more than 500 employees. Whilst nearly all of the respondents expected to make 5G-related security changes within the next five years, only 16% have started preparing before the mainstream wave of 5G deployments arrives.
Participants were also asked what their preparations were focused on and 44% of respondents were concerned about the larger attack surface. The second most concern at 39% was about the greater number of devices accessing the network.
Other concerns for 36% and 33% of respondents, respectively, included the need to extend security policy to new types of IoT devices and the need to authenticate a larger number and wider variety of devices.
Ignoring virtualization
"Enterprises will need to take advantage of virtualization to make the network nimbler and more responsive, with the ability to provide just-in-time services."
The AT&T Cybersecurity Insights Report.
The report claims that: "Most of the transitions in networking have been about faster speeds or increased capacity. 5G introduces more complex networking and is being delivered with virtualization in mind.
"The latter appears to be a crucial gap in the way enterprises are preparing for 5G, as enterprises will need to take advantage of virtualization to make the network nimbler and more responsive, with the ability to provide just-in-time services. Many enterprises are not considering this as a possibility, according to our data."
5G significantly expands the size of the cyber-attack surface, creating more opportunities for other parties to strike. Despite this, the report found that businesses have not fully taken into account the vulnerability of their systems.
Only 33% of enterprises had implemented multi-factor authentication, and 7% said they plan to implement it during the next five years. If businesses wish to embrace 5G, security needs significantly brushing up to use the network safely.
You can download the full PDF report here.
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