DailyPost 2836
…TURN OF THE TELCOS
As the truism goes; hacking is the new normal, it’s just a matter of time, which sector or which industry would be hit, more so if you are in any way connected to the IT world. 4G gave us brick and mortar connectivity for years but the movement to the next generation networks is not going to be without its serious birth pangs. 5G brings with it a different level of connectivity to the devices working on it. There are mammoth devices online supporting bandwidth-intensive enterprise services and consumer use cases.
While most of the benefits of 4G and further of 5G we are aware, what we don’t give a thought to, that in the hyper-connected world, cyber security of these networks are critical. If we were to exploit its full potential, the telecom industry needs to ensure sufficient funds to be invested to make the networks robust. The threat surface is increasing, of what we don’t have any great idea, the vulnerabilities propping on and how to navigate to a better cyber security positioning. Our battle with ransomware attacks so far doesn’t paint a pleasing picture.
The telcos are on the chopping block. Our very own Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, BSNL, is 86 million subscribers strong. It is going ahead with deploying a home grown stack for its fourth generation network. This has recently suffered a data breach, the second one in six months. It pertains to 278 GB of data from its telecom operations. It has server snapshots too, which can be used for SIM cloning and other such serious criminal activities. To beat it all, the hacker had available the data for sale at a ridiculous price; $5000 dollars.*In BSNL’s earlier breach last year, *sample data was published by the threat actors on the darkweb.
The data which went on the darkweb was critical as it included sensitive details of its fibre and landline users. From a physical theoretical quantum angle, it contained just 32,000 lines of data, while the total across all databases reach 2.9 million plus. That the telecoms are on the line of fire is also being made known from other connected quarters. Cyber security firm CloudSEK claims to have uncovered a massive data breach earlier this year. The data in question in this breach is to the tune of 1.8 terabytes encompassing 750 million telecom users in India.
GOVERNMENTS ARE SLEEPWALKING INTO THE CYBER INSECURITY MINEFIELD.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.