Arturo Azcorra talks about the challenges of 5G technology with the Spanish newspaper 'El País'

"No technology is irreproachable and 5G is like any other tool: it allows you to do many things as long as you use it well."

29 November 2019

“No technology is irreproachable and 5G is like any other tool: it allows you to do many things as long as you use it well.”

Arturo Azcorra, director of the IMDEA Networks research institute and professor at the Carlos III University of Madrid, gives his opinion in the report “5G inherits vulnerabilities of previous generations that threaten the system”. The Spanish newspaper report points out the risk that 5G inherits vulnerabilities from previous generations that threaten the system, with references such as that of a study by Syed Rafiul Hussain, a researcher at Purdue University (Indiana, USA), which highlights 11 possible vulnerabilities of devices that use 5G (such as tracking a user’s location in real time; knowing the user’s identity; making false emergency alerts and completely disconnecting a cellphone from the network without prior notice).

The newspaper points out how the industry expects to have 1,500 million users in 2020, with 40% of the world population connected by 2024 and Arturo Azcorra stresses that in this context no technology is faultless: “5G is like any other tool: it allows you to do many things as long as you use it well. Any technology provides opportunities and it is down to users to know the limits they want to put in place to protect their identity and integrity. This is the first time that security has been incorporated as the main requirement whereas previously [from 1G to 4G] it was just an added aspect”. Azcorra also points out in his contribution to the report how these vulnerabilities have still to be analyzed, “but have yet to be proven”, he insists.