ENISA Threat Landscape for 5G Networks Report

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Publication date:December 14, 2020

This report is an update of the ENISA 5G Threat Landscape, published in its first edition in 2019. This document is a major update of the previous edition. It encompasses all novelties introduced, it captures developments in the 5G architecture and it summarizes information found in standardisation documents related to 5G. Moreover, the vulnerability and threat assessments found in this document introduce a significant advancement to the previous edition, by providing more comprehensive information about the exposure of assets of the updated 5G architecture.

Beyond the changes described above, some additional elements have been taken into account. Firstly, implementation/migration options of a gradual migration to 5G from 4G have been taken into account. Secondly, security issues of operational processes have been considered. These two changes enlarge the scope of the assessment and include important parts for the enhancement of operational security. For all these new elements, this report provides a vulnerability analysis, indicating how these vulnerabilities can be exploited through cyberthreats and how this exploitation can be mitigated through security controls. The assessed vulnerabilities are consolidated from various sources, including main 5G standardisation documents and telecommunication best practices (3GPP, ITU, ETSI, ISO, NIST and GSMA).