Background and Motivation

5G -and beyond- networks provide a strong foundation for EU’s digital transformation and are becoming one of the Union’s key assets to compete in the global market. Since 5G (and its future evolutions, 6G etc.) offers the fabric that connects EU systems and services, critical infrastructures, economy, etc., it is imperative to focus on the security, privacy, and trust challenges that surface due to their open, disaggregate and interoperable underlying technology solutions. Securing 5G networks and the services running on top of them requires high quality technical security solutions and also strong collaboration at the operational level.

All stakeholders (operators, vertical infrastructures, national authorities and public bodies, security experts, research community, etc.) must work together to build robust defenses and establish cooperation channels and practices for preparedness, incident handling, response and mitigation actions etc. The main aim of SAND5G is to deliver a risk and impact assessment platform for 5G to support a) 5G stakeholders secure their systems and services b) National Authorities and Member States’ Regulators overview the security status and applied measures that implement their national cybersecurity strategies and legislation, in line with European 5G cybersecurity policies and proposed EU toolbox for 5G security.

Concept

The SAND5G project will build a platform capable of producing technical and financial risk assessments for 5G stakeholders to ensure that their infrastructures and products are secure and aligned with the national cyber security strategy and the national framework for the security of telecommunications. The platform will also offer continuous monitoring of 5G systems and automated Incident Response (SOAR – Security Operations and Automated Response) capabilities for active protection.

SAND5G overall architecture
SAND5G overall architecture

SAND5G will define a clear strategy to connect key actors of the EU 5G ecosystem at both technical and operational levels. This strategy will drive the project objectives, design and development approach and will be based on a triangle of key actors: Operators of 5G infrastructures and services, Security Providers, Public Authorities.

SAND5G triangle of actors
SAND5G triangle of actors

Methodology

The overall project SAND5G will follow 4 clear phases of development: Definition, Design, Implementation, Validation.