Page 135 - SAMENA Trends - February 2020

ARTICLE SAMENA TRENDS

to happen and are increasing in complexity the foundational fabric upon which other defences to be put in place for the new
and sophistication. Too many countries NCI specific segments are dependent digital paradigm. Threats against national
depend on retrospective action. Most for their own effective day-to-day critical communications infrastructure are
countries will impose a rule or regulation operations – by definition it provides the continuously evolving and attackers are
following an incident, the key part in this “Cyber” in Cybersecurity. This fact alone adapting to current defences. Security,
activity being after the incident has taken makes a nation’s telecommunications therefore, is a continuous process and
place. Whereas this was not a serious infrastructure the single most attractive must be a joint-effort between multiple
concern in the area of fixed line voice, target for cyber terrorists, “hacktivists” or parties.
mobile networks now provide an endless rogue foreign nation-state adversaries.
supply of previously unavailable rich data. With attackers becoming more
The temptation for criminals, fraudsters Attacks that exploit the interconnection sophisticated in terms of resource and
and nation-state sanctioned network between telecom networks together strategy, and our society’s interconnectivity
abuse is simply too much for those with with the inherent weaknesses of legacy blurring borders, it is more important than
the resources to misbehave. Data knows telecommunications protocols present ever that national regulators and mobile
no border. a challenge both for operators and operators across the globe work together
government bodies concerned in securing to defend against attacks on critical
From our extensive global critical infrastructure. communications infrastructure.
experience, we believe to So, Who Is Responsible? Governments ultimately own the primary
properly secure the national The answer, of course, is all parties, albeit responsibility of the security of their
in slightly different capacities.
citizens, be it physical or digital. National
critical communications critical telecommunications infrastructure
infrastructure of any National Regulators are required to is no different.
country requires a maintain a clear view on the types of With almost all countries having 90%
attacks that exist, that present a threat to
mobile phone penetration, their citizens
multi-layered approach. domestic telecommunications networks, becoming ever more digitally enabled daily,
Collaboration is essential since these are a key National Critical and connection to the Internet regarded
as a necessity as opposed to a luxury,
Infrastructure component and enabler
between private and for other critical functions including governments need to introduce coherent
public sector bodies in the government itself. and coordinated strategies to ensure their
development of effective, This implies publishing a minimum set national digital sovereignty remains intact.
consistently applied of cyber telecommunication security This can be achieved through progressive
security measures. requirements from a legislative standpoint, and innovative legislation and by removing
together with defining a reporting strategy
the uncertainty and incoherence that exists
of anomalies from the operators, which globally today. They need to assist their
The Way Forward would allow ongoing analysis of the national mobile operators, who lack the
From our extensive global experience, we threat landscape, its evolution and – most expertise, to protect their subscribers form
believe to properly secure the national important – a country’s adversaries. This other nation state threats – after all they
critical communications infrastructure dictates defining a legal framework that are the entity that benefits the licence and
of any country requires a multi-layered removes the current ambiguity around e.g. spectrum fees an operator pays to operate
approach. the privacy/ data protection considerations in their country.Put simply, Governments
that may arise when implementing such and national regulators cannot be passive
Collaboration is essential between defences. when it comes to their Carriers securing
private and public sector bodies in the the nations critical telecommunications
development of effective, consistently Mobile Operators then have a responsibility infrastructure .
applied security measures. This includes for implementation of at least the minimum
the sharing of threat related intelligence local defence required, and to work with “The Birthday of a New World is at hand”
and facilitating the development of the regulators and other responsible decreed Thomas Paine in 1776. We
cross-sector practices in securing any entities to validate that the nation’s would do well to apply this wisdom to the
nation’s key communications assets and telecommunications infrastructure is considerable and endless threat landscape
infrastructure. secure. that nation’s face today. A new dawn of
security is upon us, and a combined effort
The telecommunications industry is in The value of Intelligence cannot be in securing critical telecommunications
a “somewhat unique” position within an undermined, and a community of infrastructure would be a good start.
NCI protection context, since it provides intelligence is critical to allowing proper

135 FEBRUARY 2020