Security and Trust in the 6G Era

TLDR

The 6G era will demand comprehensive security enablers, with trustworthiness spanning IoT, cloud, devices, and applications, and a threat vector shaped by architectural disaggregation, open interfaces, and multiple stakeholders. We explore cyber‑resilience, privacy, and trust domains, proposing automated software creation, closed‑loop security operations, privacy‑preserving technologies, hardware and cloud trust anchors, quantum‑safe security, jamming protection, physical‑layer security, and distributed ledger technologies. We develop a novel vision for a trustworthy Secure Telecom Operation Map within the automated closed‑loop operations paradigm.

Abstract

A comprehensive set of security technology enablers will be critically required for communication systems for the 6G era of the 2030s. Trustworthiness must be assured across IoT, heterogenous cloud and networks, devices, sub-networks, and applications. The 6G threat vector will be defined by 6G architectural disaggregation, open interfaces and an environment with multiple stakeholders. Broadly decomposed into domains of cyber-resilience, privacy and trust and their respective intersection, we explore relevant security technology enablers including automated software creation and automated closed-loop security operation, privacy preserving technologies, hardware and cloud embedded anchors of trust, quantum-safe security, jamming protection and physical layer security as well as distributed ledger technologies. Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) as a key technology enabler will be pervasive and of pivotal relevance across the security technology stack and architecture. A novel vision for a trustworthy Secure Telecom Operation Map is developed as part of the automated closed loop operations paradigm.