It’s exciting to see the continued momentum of 5G in transforming industries. Do you remember when 3G and 4G first came into the picture? They unlocked opportunities for mobile broadband and video streaming. Now, 5G makes it possible for businesses like yours to connect more devices, enhance decision-making, improve operational efficiency and drive growth.
However, the real breakthrough is in the convergence of technologies that are coming together to supercharge 5G business transformation across our most critical infrastructure, industrial businesses and governments. This includes 5G coming of age at the same time as AI, bringing together lightning fast connectivity with intelligence. At the same time, IT and OT are coming together, creating new opportunities for efficiency, productivity and agility between traditionally siloed systems.
This unprecedented convergence is driving a transformation that will create profound shifts in how businesses and industries operate. And we are right in the middle of it. Let me give you a few examples of this in action:
- Smart 5G Networks – I recently met with a telecommunications company that has been combining AI with 5G to build smart 5G networks. These networks are not only blazing fast, but they are also adaptive, using machine learning algorithms to continuously analyze network performance, predict traffic and optimize, so they can offer customers the best possible connectivity.
- 5G-OT Connectivity – A chemical manufacturer set up a private 5G network to connect its OT devices, like sensors, to monitor temperature and chemical composition, ensuring the process remains safe and stable. Operators can monitor and control machinery virtually. With real-time data, they’ve optimized operations across the board – automating dangerous tasks, analyzing data and even predicting upcoming maintenance. This has led to a decrease in human intervention, an increase in safety, and better operational efficiencies – giving operators a distinct competitive edge.
- Critical Infrastructure – A global oil and gas exploration and production company, with offices in remote locations, decided to centralize its SCADA systems. Instead of maintaining a dedicated SCADA server at each remote office, the company chose to consolidate with a single SCADA server located at the data center. This new approach required a secure, private 5G network connecting OT sensors, pumps and other devices across its network, while ensuring secure SASE connectivity to the centralized data center for all remote operations.
5G Threat Landscape
These 5G-fueled digital transformations are filled with opportunities but also bring risks. I don’t need to tell you that more devices connected to a network equal an increased attack surface. And you don’t need to be a cybersecurity professional to see how the high-speed data transfer capabilities of 5G can help cybercriminals exfiltrate large volumes of data quickly.
Instead, I want you to think about the Chinese nation-state threat actor group Salt Typhoon. It is still under investigation, but we know that as early as 2023, this group began breaching telecommunications companies around the world. They gained full access to internal systems and sensitive data. Curiously, they did not ask for a hefty ransom. What they wanted was more nefarious. They sought to dig in and lay low while conducting surveillance and espionage.
This isn’t an isolated incident. As more countries, companies and consumers adopt 5G, we’ve seen more news reports of nation-state threat actor groups exploiting 5G and causing havoc. This threatens the integrity and confidentiality of corporate data, compromises operational uptime, and can even cause physical harm. These threats can also undermine the trust of customers or partners and could lead to potential financial and reputational damage.
While the 5G standard includes strong security features, like user authentication, privacy, encryption and some protection for signaling traffic, these are not designed to detect or stop advanced threats in mobile traffic. And it’s definitely not enough to protect enterprise, government or industrial businesses. To truly safeguard enterprise, government and industrial operations, organizations need a holistic 5G security solution. It needs to go beyond built-in protections to provide end-to-end visibility, advanced threat detection and unified security across the entire network. In fact, recent research from IBM’s Institute for Business Value (IBV) and Palo Alto Networks on the state of telecommunications cybersecurity suggests that the typical service provider juggles an average of 107 different security solutions from 39 vendors. This leaves them with significant complexity and security gaps. However, those who adopted a cybersecurity platform approach saw significantly better cybersecurity outcomes than those using siloed point security solutions.
As more knowledge workers are on the go, moving in and out of the corporate network and branches, the need for consistent security with secure access (internet, SaaS and private applications) while being on their 5G enabled phones is more important than ever.
Securing 5G for the Future — New Prisma SASE 5G
The fact is that security is no longer just about protection; it’s about driving innovation, customer trust and regulatory compliance – all essential for growth and competitiveness in the digital era. This will make the lives of your cybersecurity teams even easier while giving you the best possible protections for your 5G environment.
This is why we’re so excited to announce Prisma SASE 5G, Palo Alto Networks newest 5G security offering, now generally available. This solution is built for businesses that use 5G connectivity within their enterprise. This includes employees with 5G powered phones or infrastructure, like IoT/OT devices or SD-WAN devices, with 5G connectivity for Branch WAN connectivity. This way you can set consistent policies, get full visibility across your network and prevent attacks – all through a single pane of glass cybersecurity management portal. Our customers will also be excited about how this enables data sovereignty with options to configure your log storage to stay in the location you’ve specified.
Telecommunications service providers should be especially excited about this because it gives them a new opportunity to provide security to their enterprise customers as a value-added service. And they can quickly integrate this into their existing network, with fast and frictionless integration through our cloud-delivered security solution. It does this all through the service provider’s SIM, so customers can authenticate users and manage granular policies across their enterprise network.
Prisma SASE 5G is just our newest solution from our comprehensive Palo Alto Networks product portfolio of 5G security solutions. This includes our 5G Native Security platform that secures 5G devices, subscribers, networks and services everywhere. Road warriors are protected no matter where they work: On-premises, edge, core, perimeter, roaming and cloud. It gives you comprehensive visibility, security policies and protections against advanced threats through our enforcement points:
- Hardware and rugged firewalls
- Software (virtual and container) firewalls
- Secure access service edge (SASE)
- Cloud-Delivered Security Services (CDSS)
- Cloud Detection and Response
We’re also expanding our private 5G partnerships, collaborating with seven leading partners to deliver end-to-end private 5G security solutions and services designed to protect enterprise 5G deployments from core to edge, along with mission-critical traffic.
Today’s 5G digital transformation will affect businesses across sectors and geographies. As emerging technologies continue to intersect, they will drive greater competitiveness for the business leaders who embrace them securely. While adopting these new technologies securely might seem like a complex undertaking, companies who take a platformized approach have boosted their ROI by 108% and achieved better security outcomes. Simplifying the cybersecurity that protects these emerging technologies is imperative to enabling a faster, more connected and more secure future.
This week we’ll be at Mobile World Congress talking about our new 5G solutions. We’re happy to showcase how our platform makes a 5G security strategy possible and answer any cybersecurity questions you may have. Come see us at in Hall 4, Stand #4D55.