The biggest threat to 5G security lies in the myriad unsecured IoT devices which will be connected to future networks rather than the infrastructure itself, cybersecurity company FireEye’s CTO Grady Summers argued.

Speaking at media briefing in Hong Kong, Summers (pictured, right) said the growing number of connected devices raises a lot of concerns, with the company “often shocked at the poor security” provided.

As it becomes easier to connect something wirelessly, “we’ll see more connections and more poorly secured devices. So I’m very concerned from a privacy perspective about how data may be leaked due to poorly secured 5G networks”, he explained.

Beyond devices, the executive noted FireEye had not seen anything in Huawei’s infrastructure which caused alarm. He believes trade sanctions imposed on the company by the US are political and appear out of step with a landscape in which the “growth of the internet and the gains we’ve all enjoyed from it occurred because the internet doesn’t have boundaries”.

“We use the best technology regardless where it comes from. I hate to see Balkanisation of the internet.”

Quicker action
Looking the security industry’s response to cyber threats, he cited figures showing dwell time, the period between when a breach starts and is detected, fell from 146 days in 2015 to 78 in 2018.

Nearly 60 per cent of the attacks were found externally in 2018, down from 94 per cent in 2011.

He noted email remains the most common vector for criminal attacks and espionage, and suggested if businesses can only take one step towards better security they should shore-up their email systems.