5G technology for broadband cellular networks will significantly improve how humans and machines communicate, operate, and interact in the physical and virtual world. 5G provides increased bandwidth and capacity, and low latency. However, professionals in fields like technology, cybersecurity, and privacy are faced with safeguarding this technology while its development, deployment, and usage are still evolving.
To help, the NIST National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) has launched the Applying 5G Cybersecurity and Privacy Capabilities white paper series. The series targets technology, cybersecurity, and privacy program managers within commercial mobile network operators, potential private 5G network operators, and organizations using and managing 5G-enabled technology who are concerned with how to identify, understand, assess, and mitigate risk for 5G networks. In the series we provide recommended practices and illustrate how to implement them. All of the capabilities featured in the white papers have been demonstrated on the NCCoE testbed on commercial-grade 5G equipment.
We are pleased to announce the availability of the sixth white paper in this series:
5G Network Security Design Principles - This publication provides the network infrastructure security design principles that commercial and private 5G network operators are encouraged to use. Such a network infrastructure isolates types of 5G network traffic from each other — data plane, signaling, and operation and maintenance (O&M) traffic - to improve cybersecurity and privacy. These security principles were demonstrated on the NCCoE 5G security testbed.
The public comment period is open through July 17, 2025. See the project homepage for a copy of the publication and instructions for submitting comments.
