GSMA MOBILE 360 SERIES – PRIVACY & SECURITY: Spirent Communications backed trust modelling as an important step to deliver security in 5G networks, something its business development manager Diana Stanescu argued had been largely overlooked so far in development of the technology.

In a panel session, Stanescu (pictured, second from right) noted 5G development to date focused more on delivering a dynamic technology, but explained the approach is overlooking the fact a vast increase in the number of devices this will bring is leaving “many doors open” for hackers to “break into that network”.

Trust modelling aims to enable devices to assess whether they can rely on another device to be secure based on pre-defined values.

Stanescu said the approach is a work in progress, with standards currently in development for 5G: “It’s helping create…common sense for security, for all the 5G,” she explained, adding it will aid understanding of the “leaps we are getting with 5G”.

Those leaps include relatively unknown territory including autonomous vehicles and smart cities: developments which will see machines discuss and negotiate with other machines: “Think about all the small devices which don’t have any kind of security, but must be implemented,” Stanescu noted, adding such units “are leaving doors open”.

Using a trust model “will lay common sense” pathways “for security and for the architecture to be able to evolve,” she said.