5G research by DARPA will lead to commercial applications -

The U.S. military is devoting time and resources to research to improve signal quality and 5G security – efforts that, if history is an indication, will ultimately lead to technologies available to businesses.

Like Breaking the defense reports, The Advanced Defense Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has allocated approximately $ 500,000 in “exploratory” funding to the wireless startup MixComm to demonstrate whether silicon wave amplifiers (mmWave) can economically amplify radio signals so that the Ministry of Defense (DoD) to be able to use 5G wireless connectivity worldwide.

A MixComm spokesman said Breaking the defense that the company’s radios amplify mmWave frequencies in a way that offers “huge bandwidth, capacity, and low latency,” in part because mmWaves uses higher frequencies than those often used today.

For commercial enterprises, whose digital transformation largely depends on high-performance networks, bandwidth and capacity breakthroughs may not come soon enough. Remote work and collaboration, the Internet of Things, multimedia, end networks and smart applications – they all depend more and more on the speed and scalability of the network.

IoT risks for the military

The US Air Force is eager to expand the use of 5G devices, but the Army Air Force is well aware that new technologies pose new threats. To reduce your vulnerability as it integrates 5G power supply IoT devices in its network, the Air Force is collaborating with startups to develop IoT security solutions.

Most recently, the branch awarded Phosphorus Cybersecurity a research contract to develop automated tools for inventorying IoT devices, as well as for correcting and managing credentials of connected devices in a 5G environment, According to to Technology in Washington.

Needless to say, commercial enterprises that can deploy thousands of IoT devices with 5G activated have a major interest in better (and automated) security. Not only is every device connected to a network a point of potential vulnerability, new devices are by definition more likely to have undetected security flaws.

5G networks are more vulnerable

In addition, 5G networks are more vulnerable to cyberattacks than previous networks in five specific ways, such as The Brookings Institution write:

Networks built before 5G had “hardware chokes” where security controls could be applied to digital traffic. However, it is 5G software defined network (SDN) that there are no such points to stifle security.
In the higher-level 5G network functions, traditionally performed by physical devices, they will be virtualized into software that runs on popular commercial operating systems and uses the common language of the Internet protocol, both useful tools for hackers.
5G networks are managed by software that could theoretically be controlled by hackers. This means that hackers can also control your 5G network.
Dramatically expanded bandwidth means drastically expanded attack paths.
5G will lead to the deployment of tens of billions of IoT devices in networks. Again, more devices equate to more vulnerabilities.

Whatever 5G solutions DARPA and BBC come up with in collaboration with their research partners, commercialization is unlikely to lag far behind. In fact, DARPA actually has group , which promotes the commercialization of technology, as research and development have been conducted with the agency. DARPA recently expanded its Embedded Entrepreneurship initiative to “accelerate 150 DARPA-supported laboratories into products that promise to radically change the way we live, work and fight.”