5G is pacing up at warp speed to revolutionize day-to-day communication of people across the globe. It’s already emerged in world’s major cities. However, it is NOT prime time yet for fast 5G.
Are you wondering why?
5G’s reputation is at stake.
Because, over a dozen of vulnerabilities observed in this trend-setter – which are enough to add salt into wounds of global users.
It’s not yet prime time for 5G networks, which still face logistical and technical hurdles, but they’re increasingly coming online in major cities worldwide. Which is why it’s especially worrying that new 5G vulnerabilities are being discovered almost by the dozen.
Read on to find out more about vulnerabilities of 5G and keep yourself and your digital life protected from potential threats.
A group of academics unearthed new findings about 5G at Association for Computing Machinery’s Conference on Computer and Communication Security that 5G specification is swamped with vulnerabilities. Unluckily pace is so swift that it’s becoming harder to fix flaws.
The researchers from the University of Iowa and Purdue University collaborated and detailed around a dozen design issues in 5G protocols.
And, believe it or not – Hackers don’t leave any rock unturned when system is flawed and 5G is inundated with security flaws.
These threats are so lethal to online privacy of any Internet users. It’s most urgent need now to cope up with these flaws. Sooner or later, we are coming under the radar of hackers and potential threats.
Following are some of the damages that can cause by 5G vulnerabilities.
- Your Location could be exposed without your prior permission.
- Immediate downgrade of your services to previous data networks.
- Unauthorized tracking of your phone calls, activities on internet and so much more.
All-in-all, it became possible due to a new custom tool called 5GReasoner. This tool took this finding to new levels by exploring further and revealed that most of these vulnerabilities were carried over from 3G and 4G.
A mobile security researcher from Purdue University who actually led this study, Syed Rafiul Hussain said: –
‘”We had a hunch when we started this work that there were more vulnerabilities to find. Since many security features from 4G and 3G have been adopted to 5G, there is a high chance that vulnerabilities in previous generations are likely inherited to 5G too. Additionally, new features in 5G may not have undergone rigorous security evaluation yet. So we were both surprised and not so surprised by our findings.”
5G is considered to be efficient at protecting phone identifiers i.e. IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity to help safeguard user(s) from tracking and/or targeted attacks. However, downgrade attacks that researchers have found out can take your device down back to 4G or might put you into limited service mode. They also found other flows i.e. these attacks may override TMSI reset, and they can correlate a device’s new and old TMSI.
And, to your surprise – Software-powered radios that cause this numbing attacks just cost few hundred dollars.
5GReasoner also found issues with domain of 5G standard covering essential things such as device registration, deregistration, and paging – it notifies your phone about incoming calls and texts.
Final Words: 5G is Flawed and Vulnerable
5G is fast, revolutionary and life-changing. However, it’s prone to security threats. Recent research by academics of University of Iowa and Purdue University is enough to awaken global users to not just be fascinated by gleaming side of 5G, it has another side which is dark and full of risks for an average phone-user.
Let us know about your views regarding Flaws in 5G and its vulnerability towards potential threats in the comment section below.