What advisers need to know about 5G

Enhanced imaging abilities will make virtual meetings feel much more real. Physical meetings could become a thing of the past, providing businesses with substantial savings on travel time and fuel costs.   

In the industry as a whole, 5G heralds an explosion of communication innovations.

These include:

• Cloud-based finance apps;
• Wireless bank branches;
• Enhanced trading and investment management capabilities; and
• The ability to make payments and transfer funds in an instant from mobile devices and even wearable tech devices such as smart watches.  

The list of potential benefits is extensive and while these things will inevitably take time to become mainstream, financial advisers will naturally be keeping an eye on 5G-powered innovations and thinking of ways they can take advantage of them.

Security challenges 

But, while the software-defined nature of 5G brings many benefits, it introduces new risks and security challenges.

You do not need to look hard to find press coverage of people being targeted by spyware, companies being hit by ransomware, or hackers stealing millions in cryptocurrency.

The combination of this software-based implementation and the increased number of cell towers involved means that 5G has a much larger attack surface than previous generations. Put simply, there are more ways into the network than ever before.

Securing it will be a challenge for operators, making it a potentially attractive target for those with malicious intent.

Taking a step back from 5G itself, some of its intended uses have the potential to introduce their own risks. For example, one of the goals for 5G is to provide next-gen connectivity for the 'internet of things' (IoT), or smart devices. 

IoT is a catch-all for a wide range of items, covering everything from a smart lightbulb to an autonomous car.

Unfortunately, it is not always the case that these items are well made, and many have little or no consideration given to their security.

This poses a risk both to consumers who may purchase a poorly secured smart device and the internet at large, as IoT devices continue to prove a popular target for hackers. 

Poorly secured IoT devices are already a problem, being co-opted into botnets and abused for things like denial-of-service attacks to knock companies offline.

If 5G delivers on its goal of ushering in a new era of smart tech, but that tech has the same inconsistent approach to security, then this problem will only get worse, as ever more devices come online with better and faster connections that can be exploited.

If the devices are not secure by design, then the smart security system you intended to help protect your premises may well end up being a backdoor, allowing ransomware in and your confidential data out.