Saudi Arabian operator Zain KSA and network security specialist Enea have announced a collaboration to pilot the world’s first mobile network signalling overlay technology, which, they say, significantly extends signalling firewall capabilities.
Enea says its signalling overlay technology represents a novel approach to enhancing mobile network security and efficiency. By employing transport layer-aware distributed ingestion across both virtual/cloud and traditional network infrastructures, it explains, signalling firewalls gain deeper insights into network events, ensuring robust protection against emerging threats.
Leveraging the adaptive signalling firewall's advanced techniques for detection and protocol correlation, the overlay technology enables mobile operators to safeguard their networks against sophisticated attacks.
The signalling security overlay technology pilot project will be undertaken in Zain KSA’s network in Saudi Arabia during 2024.
With global threats against telecom networks escalating, network security has become a high priority for Zain KSA, which has consistently invested in security for both signalling and messaging to safeguard its extensive digital ecosystem. This pilot, says Enea, will accelerate the technology innovation and deployment of next generation signalling security solutions for complex and more sophisticated network security attacks.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the world-first pilot was signed at Mobile World Congress Barcelona (see photo). Although Zain KSA will be the first to test the new technology, the pilot programme may be expanded to several other markets and customers.
The patent-pending signalling security overlay was conceived in Enea’s Technology Research unit during 2023, with patents filed in December 2023.