The proliferation of software within 5G networks is one of the top security challenges facing the next generation of mobile networks, according to a report out this week from the European Union.
5G networks are fundamentally different than prior wireless networks in that they are largely software-defined and virtualized; network functions, historically defined in hardware, become virtual software capabilities in 5G, all orchestrated via a flexible software control plane. Even the air interfaces in the radio access network (RAN) are software-defined in 5G.
