5G Will Raise New Security Problems for IoT Says Nokia

While 5G technology is poised to influence the industries and societies in fundamental ways, it’s also set to generate new security problems that will have to be deal with, said that Mary O’Neill, VP of security at Nokia.

The low-latency, large-bandwidth 5G technology has enormous potential, but it will also pave the way for unknown threat actors, which is especially true for the Internet for Things (IoT), said O’Neill during a Q&A at the MWC Los Angeles 2019 (Mobile World Congress.)

The SDxCentral report says while IoT devices only account for just 16% of the overall traffic, they amount to 78% if the total malware available on the mobile networks. Once the 5G deployments go into full gear, encompassing the mobile networks, that number is expected to go through the roof.

The biggest problem is the lack of support for IoT devices, which often remain unpatched, even when know vulnerabilities are found and fixed. In fact, a device plugged into a network can be infected in a matter of minutes.

“If an IoT device today is plugged into the network, and it doesn’t have protection in it, it’s infected in three minutes or less,” said Mary O’Neill.

The IoT industry is still largely unregulated, which is one of the reasons for the market fragmentation and lack of standardization. The U.S. Congress is already debating bills that would further regulate the ecosystem, but the arrival of 5G will complicate matters.

The security IoT terminals is so problematic that even the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is looking to fund initiatives that could lead to a safer Internet of Thing future.