Cyber security is a growing concern in all parts of the world, with the roll out of 5G networks in many countries, building effective 5G cyber security strategies will be key for protecting networks and end-user data. 

Key 5G cyber security challenges include multiple domains, multi-services, and multi-access which present threats such as security complexity to deal with multiple levels across domains, more dynamic and multifaced attacks, plus the perimeter security model becoming insufficient respectively. 

In 2020, Huawei passed the 5G Core (5GC) Network equipment Security Assurance Scheme (NESAS) and Security Assurance Specifications (SCAS) assessment becoming the first company to complete GSMA's NESAS evaluation. 

NESAS includes security assessments of vendor development, product lifecycle processes, and Security Assurance Specifications, it acts as a mobile industry-wide network security evaluation framework that is efficient and open to evolution. 

Objectively NESAS measures how secure a network product is and Huawei having passed the assessment, is supporting GSMA and 3GPP on developing globally standardized security evaluations. By this standard, key 5G cyber security strategies must include the following standards. 

2. A Layered 5G Cyber Security Model Renowned in the Industry 

The 3-layer security model is widely accepted in the telecommunications industry including institutions like 3GPP, 5G PPP, among others. 

On Layer 1 product security through standard compliance, SDL security development life cycle and NE protection are realized with operation devices including base stations, routers, and the network core. 

Layer 2 network security involves secure deployment of network equipment, connection to the 5G Core, O&M security, and network protection. To the top, layer 3 involves application security, sp compliance, and service protection to terminal and vertical application providers including device apps. 

As listed through the layered security model, 5G security requires "shared responsibility" among different stakeholders at all levels of operation. 

4. Top-level Design Principles for 5G Cyber Security 

When Level 2 Network security is combined with level 1 product security, basic principles on 5G cyber security can be achieved. Principal 1 involves in-depth defense, and includes protection against border intrusion and lateral movement attacks with Anti-Dos, access control, encryption, and anti-tampering as key mechanisms. 

Principle 2 Zero trust @ 5G involves continuous evaluation and dynamic authorization with anti-spoofing, and anti-elevation of privilege as execution mechanisms. 

Principal 3 on adaptive security involves dynamic, continuous optimization based on Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover (IPDRR) with continuous detection and proactive closed-loop control as key mechanisms. 

7. Adaptive Security: Continuous Detection and Proactive Closed-Loop Based on the IPDRR Methodology 

Intelligent analysis, automatic forensics, confirmation, and policy distribution contribute to the integration of adaptive security through building intrinsic 5G security capabilities and developing dynamic security solutions that are continuously optimized in form of a cycle. 

Conclusion 

To build effective 5G cyber security strategies, it's important to note that 5G cyber security is a shared responsibility of key stakeholders such as Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), vendors, application providers, and regulators. 

Report is from Huawei Uganda 5G Expert Mr. Franklin.

Huawei Technologies hosted the Digital Africa Summit, which took place during AfricaCom, last week, with expert speakers engaging on Africa’s digital transformation, the strides made during the Covid 19 pandemic and the path still ahead. 

While Africa has come far in the past 18 months in its digital transformation, there is still much potential to fully embrace digital transformation and equip the continent’s youth with the skills they need to thrive in a digital economy. 

Achieving this transformation, however, means going beyond simply adapting and evolving new technologies to old ways of doing things. It requires a full commitment to a ground-up transformation without delay.

When it comes to seeing the benefits of taking this fully committed approach to digital transformation, African leaders can look to examples from their own continent as well as further abroad. 

As Yang Chen, VP, Huawei Southern Africa pointed out, the digital economy already accounts for more than five percent of GDP in some African countries and that number could be more than doubled in countries that take a committed approach to digital transformation. 

“Digitalisation spurs the development of new industries such as ecommerce and eGovernment,” he said. “It also disrupts existing industries to ensure lower costs and higher productivity and can empower emerging technologies like renewable energy.”

“Digital technologies also increase economic resilience against shocks like COVID-19,” he added. 

That was backed up by Joe Mucheru, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communications. 

“Last year, when COVID-19 hit, the ICT sector was one of the few to grow exponentially,” he said. 

But in order for that resilience and the wider opportunities of digital transformation to be realised, the right kind of environment needs to be created. 

“Digital transformation cannot happen unless barriers to growth are reduced or completely removed,” said Chen. “Investment in infrastructure is also key to a digitally transformed economy.” 

Decision-makers, particularly in government are key to removing these barriers who often worry about the risk of putting their energy behind any one specific technology. 

But, as Sharoda Rapeti, Non-Executive Director, Delta Partners pointed out, “delaying decisions creates a multitude of risks which has a massive impact on the economy.” 

Instead, she suggests that governments do as much as they can to “create critical mass to put their countries on their way to a digital economy.” 

The opportunity, she believes, lies in owning the verticals not yet claimed by the big technology platforms, as well as bringing digital technology to traditional areas of strength such as minerals and agriculture. 

Most crucial, however, is the building of digital skills, especially among young people. “How much are we leveraging scarce skills to build a digital economy?”, she asked. 

As John Omo, Secretary-General of the African Telecommunications Union (ATU), pointed out COVID-19 illustrated how wide the skills gap is in Africa. 

“It was not just the lack of access to technology, that led to African economies falling behind during the pandemic, but also the lack of skills,” he said. “This situation provoked the realisation that as much as we must increase coverage, we must address the skills among youth” 

An example of a country that has successfully embraced digital transformation is China, which now has the biggest broadband network in the world and is home to the vast majority of the globe’s 5G base stations. 

“China is also an example of how technology is embedded within the economy,” said Rapeti, who pointed out that mobile payments in that country now make up 16% of its GDP. 

And, as Chen Hui, Deputy Director of Industry and Planning Research Institute CAICT, pointed out, the overall digital economy accounts for 38.6% of China’s GDP and employs more than 200-million people.

In Africa, some countries are seeing the benefits of digital transformation and have set it as a national priority. 

Among the most countries with the most advanced digital transformation programmes are Botswana and Kenya. 

“Botswana has developed a digital transformation strategy called SmartBots to deliver government services,” said Thulaganyo Merafe Segokgo , Botswana’s Minister of Transport and Communications. “Implementations of these programmes continue to help Botswana develop into a knowledge-based economy.” 

The aim, he said, is to put all government services online within the next three years. 

“There is the opportunity for accelerated growth with the right investments,” he added, pointing out that partnerships with private companies such as Huawei are crucial to achieving it. 

According to Mucheru, Kenya intends to keep its “momentum going and speed up the development of the digital economy.”  

“We believe we can address the critical issues needed to enable a digital economy,” he added. “The government strongly believes in partnership with the private sector, including Huawei. Going forward, we will be focusing more on driving innovation at the grassroots level.” 

“Every economy around the world is looking for the skills to build the digital world,” Chen concluded, adding that Africa can benefit from that. “By cultivating inclusion, we cultivate the ability to strive and progress.”

The General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) is a regulation in the law on data protection and privacy in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). The regulation also addresses the transfer of personal data outside the EU and EEA areas with a primary aim to enhance individuals' control and rights over their personal data, as well as to simplify the regulatory environment for international business.

The regulation has become a model for many other national laws outside Europe, including United Kingdom, Turkey, Mauritius, Chile, Japan, Brazil, South Korea, Argentina and Kenya, among many others.

In the Cloud context, Huawei acts as a data processor, where controllers (usually the customer) using Huawei solutions, maintain control over data hosted on this infrastructure. This includes security configuration controls for handling end-user contents and personal data.

Then, Huawei only processes personal data as instructed by the data controller. This gives the data controller (end user) full control on his/her data hosted on Huawei Cloud which ensures privacy protection through 3 phases.

Privacy protection from solution design

By default, privacy protection requirements are incorporated into the development life-cycle from the early stages of Huawei Cloud products and solutions.

From concept, external privacy protection requirement analysis is performed to meet customer privacy protection requirements, privacy protection requirements in target markets and best privacy protection practices in the industry.

At the design stage, privacy protection risk analysis and design ensures that PIA and PbD incorporated into a spoofing, tampering, repudiation, denial of service, elevation of privilege (STRIDE) threat analysis model, also compliance with privacy protection guidelines is considered during the planning phase.

To test the quality of service (Qos), privacy protect testing undergoes a series of tests on products including solution, cases and verification tests in addition to Independent protection acceptance by the independent cyber security lab (ICSL) before product release.

Completed the rectification for 27 product versions before GDPR enforcement. After GDPR enforcement, all product versions must strictly follow the requirements.

Privacy Protection Guidelines has released 4 versions on an Annual Basis.

Privacy protection from process design

By process design, Huwei Cloud set up a top down governance architecture to ensure effective execution and supervision of activities. Led by the Global cyber security and user privacy protection committee chaired by a Rotating chairman, the global cyber security & privacy officer (GSPO) ensures privacy, security and legal affairs are tabled to meet industry standards.

Data Subject Rights are protected by developing explicit management requirements, processes and unified IT systems (PDMR). These include the right to know, access, receitifcation, erasure, restriction of procession, data portability, object, automated decision-making and profiling.

The process includes service level agreement (SLA), request acceptance, handling, result feedback and request closure before redirection to the IT platform.

On the frontend users can submit questions about personal data on the Huawei official website. Each background function has dedicated personnel to handle user questions within a specified time, ensuring that all requests can be handled within the legally stipulated period. 

Also Huawei has developed 12 types of deterministic push down automaton (DPA) and due deligence (DD) templates based on the categories and delivery scenarios of GDPR suppliers. As per GDPR requirements, all GDPR suppliers involved in the cooperation with Huawei must sign the DPAs and conduct DD to compliance with GDPR to process personal data.

Privacy protection via a range of technologies

HUAWEI CLOUD customers have access to a range of privacy protection technologies, these include, access control and identity authentication, data encryption, log and audit, and related privacy enhancing technologies (PETs).

PETs include equivalence class, differential privacy, anti-tracking, blockchain-based private payment, privacy-preserving computation, data masking, searchable encryption, among other technologies.

The HUAWEI CLOUD cyber security and privacy protection capabilities are widely recognized around the world. So far, the cloud computing platform has earned certifications from more than 10 global organizations, these include the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), CSA Star Cloud Security, AICPA certifications, SOC 1 Type II Report, SOC 2 Type II Report, SOC 3 Report and ISO certifications 2015,2017,2019.

In summary, Huawei Cloud is a GDPR compliant service provider that not only ranks 5^th in the cloud computing market, but now offers global customer privacy protection for every service and server instances hosted on the platform.

A Report by the Huawei Uganda Global Cyber security & Privacy Officer (GSPO) Mr. John

The Minister of ICT and National Guidance and the Managing Director Huawei Uganda, Mr. Gao Fei launched the Huawei ICT Talent Development Report in Kampala on Friday 27^th August 2021 at Kampala Serena Hotel.

Research shows that people and organizations' ability to access and use ICT services is more likely to drive economic development than ICT education and skills.   

Outstanding lecturer Mr. Olinga Peter John who trained the winners of the Huawei ICT Competition in 2020 both regional and global level. 

Minister of ICT and National Guidance, Hon. Dr. Chris Baryomunsi awarding Mr. Olinga Peter John the outstanding lecturer in 2020 at the Huawei ICT Academy. 

He lauded initiatives such as the Huawei ICT Academy, Huawei ICT Competition, and Huawei Seeds for the future among others as helping to make Uganda realize its 2040 vision and 2014 National ICT Policy sooner since through initiatives such as these that involve skilling of young people, Uganda achieve socio-economic Development and be relevant in the new digital era. 

The Minister of ICT and National Guidance said, “ICT is a critical part to Uganda’s socio-economic development and big enabler of job creation, business growth, innovation, export, and efficient public service delivery.” 

The ICT minister revealed that Uganda wants to be the region’s top ICT-enabled country and to realise this digital transformation young people should have the skills, passion, determination and support to develop and use their ICT skills to drive this country forward.

He added that Government needs partners in private sector such as Huawei, not only in implementing technology solutions, but more importantly in working together to build the skills in our current and future workforce. 

“The NRM government have put digital upskilling a top priority and this is witnessed in the Vision 2040. Which is, Uganda shall develop and improve its ICT capacity, building efforts by adopting globally-benchmarked, industry-rated skills assessments, and training and certification standards. These efforts will be coupled with international industry collaboration in testing and certification standards,” he said.

The ICT minister said Uganda’s National ICT policy of 2014 highlights strategies of human resource development including inclusion of a comprehensive and regularly updated computer literacy module in the curriculum at all levels of education using international benchmarks as a reference. 

Huawei has been playing an active role in Uganda’s digital transformation through technological infrastructure and digital upskilling. This has been the case since 2007 when Huawei started its collaboration with the Ministry of ICT when the National Backbone infrastructure project commenced. 

Huawei ICT Development Report 2021 launch was attended by the Deputy Prime Minister Rukia Nakaddama Isanga, Minister of Education - higher education Hon. Dr JC Muyingo, and Chinese embassy

Representative (the economic and commercial counsellor) Mrs. Jiang Jiqing and the Huawei Southern Africa regional VP Mr. Frank Yang Chen among others.