\tLIVE FROM MOBILE 360 SECURITY FOR 5G, THE HAGUE: The technical director of UK government agency the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) slammed the state of the country\u2019s security sector and claimed the mobile network vendor market is \u201cbroken\u201d.<\/p>\n
Speaking in the opening keynote session, Dr Ian Levy took aim at China\u2019s Huawei, brandishing it a supplier of \u201cbad security\u201d following the results of the NCSC\u2019s Oversight Board report published last March.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a sector, the telecoms equipment market isn\u2019t up to scratch,\u201d he argued. \u201cWhat kind of sector incentivises a market where the leader in the market \u2013 in terms of market volume – has the security we published in the Oversight report in March? How is that ok? We need to fix that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Levy cited the fact that ten years ago the market had \u201caround 12 different vendors, now we have three to five scale vendors across the world. How is that ok?\u201d<\/p>\n
He contrasted this market to that of the automotive sector. \u201cIf the only cars you could buy around the world were Ford, BMW, Audi, Lada and Skoda, would you be happy? No, of course you wouldn\u2019t. There would be no market competition so prices would go up. And more importantly security doesn\u2019t get prioritised – there\u2019s no incentive to do security in a broken market. So we have to fix the market. Something is fundamentally wrong when we have 3-5 players in RAN [radio access networks] in the entire world.”<\/p>\n
Operators
\nIt wasn\u2019t just the vendor market that was on the receiving end of Levy\u2019s criticism. He claimed that operators will need to change their business models over the next few years, arguing that \u201cbeing a bit pipe doesn\u2019t pay.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Levy warned that many operators don\u2019t have the necessary skills to run 5G networks properly, with 5G requiring \u201ca fundamentally different skillset\u201d to handle such things as virtualisation. \u201cWe need to start thinking about how we get and maintain the skills within operators to run this stuff better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite his assertion that \u201csecurity is fundamentally broken in the telecoms sector,\u201d Levy did admit that forums such as the GSMA event in The Hague are a positive step forward \u2013 as long as discussion is open and fact-based.<\/p>\n
\u201cOrganisations like GSMA can help make this a much better public conversation but we have to be evidence-based and we have to be honest. Please, when you are talking about 5G security, don\u2019t hype it up or down; talk in detail, talk in evidence and be honest with people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LIVE FROM MOBILE 360 SECURITY FOR 5G, THE HAGUE: The technical director of UK government …<\/p>\n
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