By: Will Knight
Feb 08, 2019
There was a time when the world’s two great superpowers were obsessed with nuclear weapons technology. Today the flashpoint is between the US and China, and it involves the wireless technology that promises to connect your toaster to the web.
The two countries are embroiled in a political war over the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei. The Americans have recently stepped up long-standing criticisms, claiming the tech giant has stolen trade secrets and committed fraud, and that it has ties to the Chinese government and its military.
The company denies the charges and has sought to defend its record on privacy and security. Meanwhile, US allies including Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Germany, and Japan have all either imposed restrictions on Huawei’s equipment or are considering doing so, citing national security concerns.
4G, 3G, and Wi-Fi networks—in some cases using mesh networking that cuts out central control of a network entirely—existing security issues will also carry over to the new networks. Britain’s GCHQ is expected to highlight security issues with Huawei’s technology, perhaps involving 4G systems, in coming weeks.
With 5G, a layer of control software will help ensure seamless connectivity, create virtual networks, and offer new network features. A network operator might create a private 5G network for a bank, for instance, and the bank could use features of the network to verify the identities of app users.
This software layer will, however, offer new ways for a malicious network operator to snoop on and manipulate data. It may also open up new vectors for attack, while hardware bugs could make it possible for users to hop between virtual networks, eavesdropping or stealing data as they do.