Ensuring the underlying security of our 5G-dependent future is a generational challenge and Palo Alto Networks is committed to being at the forefront. We’re honored to announce our selection as a technology partner in the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) 5G Cybersecurity project. As part of the project, Palo Alto Networks will work alongside other industry-leading collaborators to identify key 5G use cases and demonstrate how 5G architectures, including cloud-based architectures, can be effectively secured.
In March 2021, the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) NCCoE published the Executive Summary (Volume A) of a three-part 5G Security Practice Guide, a significant milestone in ensuring higher cybersecurity standards as the U.S. and the world transition to 5G. As part of the ongoing effort, Palo Alto Networks is providing our Next-Generation Firewalls to create an industry standard reference architecture that demonstrates how organizations can meet the unique cybersecurity requirements of 5G and next-generation networks.
While 5G networks have the potential to massively transform businesses, with the ability to provide a higher volume of data at faster speeds, their hyper-connected capability can also open the door to new security vulnerabilities and threat vectors. Existing security practices and legacy solutions won’t meet the needs of the new requirements; this challenge requires enterprise-grade cybersecurity protections. Organizations need confidence that 5G networks and services have enterprise-grade security with granular visibility and control across all layers and at key locations of the network.
To help keep networks, services and endpoints safe against evolving threats, Palo Alto Networks launched the industry’s first 5G-native security offering, with real-time, automated cloud-delivered threat intelligence powered by machine learning. This offering helps detect and correlate real-time attacks, threats and vulnerabilities through automatic and intelligent security enforcements and dynamic 5G slice security.
Lee Klarich, chief product officer at Palo Alto Networks, said, “A secure transition to 5G is key to enabling digital transformation across many industries, such as healthcare, business-critical IoT, critical infrastructure, government, financial services and service provider. At Palo Alto Networks, we are securing networks, clouds and devices in the 5G world with the industry's first 5G-native security offering, enabling service providers and enterprises to turn 5G networks into highly secure networks. NIST is a leading trusted resource for government agencies and private sector organizations, and we are thrilled to offer our expertise and experience to NCCoE’s 5G Cybersecurity Project.”
Kevin Stine, chief of the Applied Cybersecurity Division at NIST, said, “5G is fundamental to our digitally connected future and we’re honored to work with industry-leading 5G technology providers, including Palo Alto Networks, to develop a standards-based approach to securing the transition to 5G.”
NCCoE, a division of NIST, is a public-private collaborative hub which brings together industry, government and academia to solve government and businesses’ most pressing cybersecurity challenges.
For more information about this project or to download the first volume of this report, please visit NCCoE’s page on 5G cybersecurity.