US Government Pursues National Strategy to Secure 5G Communications

The United States and like-minded countries announced their intention to lead global development, deployment, and management of secure and reliable fifth-generation (5G) communications infrastructure, which includes hardware, software, and services used to provide 5G.   The United States will work with its like-minded partners to establish policies and structures to leap ahead of global industry competitors as 5G standards, 5G technology, and applications that ride on 5G technology evolve. 

 The United States National Cyber Strategy states that:

The Administration will facilitate the accelerated development and rollout of next generation telecommunications and information communications infrastructure in the United States, while using the buying power of the Federal Government to incentivize the move towards more secure supply chains.  The United States Government will work with the private sector to facilitate the evolution and security of 5G, examine technological and spectrum-based solutions, and lay the groundwork for innovation beyond next-generation advancements.

This National Strategy to Secure 5G expands on how the United States Government will secure 5G infrastructure domestically and abroad. The government anticipates that 5G infrastructure will be an attractive target for criminals and foreign adversaries due to the large volume of data it transmits and processes, as well as the support that 5G will provide to critical infrastructure.  It further anticipates that criminals and foreign adversaries will seek to steal information transiting the networks for monetary gain, exploit these systems and devices for intelligence collection and surveillance, and may disrupt or maliciously modify public and private services that rely on communications infrastructure.  Given these threats, the government believes that 5G infrastructure must be secure and reliable to maintain information security and address risks to critical infrastructure, public health and safety, and economic and national security.

 This National Strategy to Secure 5G will fulfill the goals of the National Cyber Strategy with four lines of effort: 

1. Facilitating the rollout of 5G domestically
2. Assessing the cybersecurity risks to and identifying core security principles of 5G capabilities and infrastructure
3. Addressing risks to United States economic and national security during development and deployment of 5G infrastructure worldwide
4. Promoting responsible global development and deployment of secure and reliable 5G infrastructure.

The full text of the strategy can be found at United States National Cyber Strategy.