SoylentNews

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The Trump administration’s so-called “race” with China to build new fifth-generation (5G) wireless networks is speeding toward a network vulnerable to Chinese (and other) cyberattacks. So far, the Trump administration has focused on blocking Chinese companies from being a part of the network, but these efforts are far from sufficient. We cannot allow the hype about 5G to overshadow the absolute necessity that it be secure.

[...] “It is imperative that America be first in fifth-generation (5G) wireless technologies,” President Trump wrote in an October Presidential Memorandum of instructions to federal agencies. While the administration, especially the Trump Federal Communications Commission (F.C.C.), makes much of how the 5G “race” with China is a matter of national security, not enough effort is being put into the security of the network itself. Nowhere in the president’s directive, for instance, was there a word about protecting the cybersecurity of the new network.

As the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee told him in November^[pdf], “the cybersecurity threat now poses an existential threat to the future of the Nation.” Last January, the brightest technical minds in the intelligence community, working with the White House National Security Council (N.S.C.), warned of the 5G cybersecurity threat. When the proposed solutions included security through a federally-owned network backbone, the wireless industry screamed in protest. The chairman of the Trump F.C.C. quickly echoed the industry line that “the market, not government, is best positioned to drive innovation and leadership.” Government ownership may not be practicable, but the concerns in the N.S.C. report have been dismissed too readily.

Worse than ignoring the warnings, the Trump administration has repealed existing protections. Shortly after taking office, the Trump F.C.C. removed a requirement imposed by the Obama F.C.C. that the 5G technical standard must be designed from the outset to withstand cyberattacks. For the first time in history, cybersecurity was being required as a forethought in the design of a new network standard — until the Trump F.C.C. repealed it. The Trump F.C.C. also canceled a formal inquiry seeking input from the country’s best technical minds about 5G security, retracted an Obama-era F.C.C. white paper about reducing cyberthreats, and questioned whether the agency had any responsibility for the cybersecurity of the networks they are entrusted with overseeing.

The simple fact is that our wireless networks are not as secure as they could be because they weren’t designed to withstand the kinds of cyberattacks that are now common. This isn’t the fault of the companies that built the networks, but a reflection that when the standards for the current fourth-generation (4G) technology were set years ago, cyberattacks were not a front-and-center concern.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission