As we build the Next Generation Internet, remember that mobile traffic is about to reach 5G speeds. The speed of 5G is very fast. Why should the upper speed limit of mobile traffic be a public safety concern? How can it be a threat to companies around the globe as well?

Mobile devices, like any other computing device, are prone to hacking, especially in the Android ecosystem, which by far is the largest these days. For Android devices we see a lot of applications that come with built-in malware which includes backdoors - backdoors that let criminals remote control what the phone is doing.

Recently we saw a pretty big DDoS attack on Dyn originating, in part, from connected IP cameras. This attack managed to take down large parts of the Internet, especially across North America. The size of the attack was not even remarkable as such in numbers of participating devices.

The upload speed per camera is less than the average bandwidth a 5G connected device will have. Much less. To explain my point here about safety succinctly: 

By remotely controlling 5G connected devices criminals will have at their hands a threat to public safety which with mere minutes of warning can remote control the online connectivity from any connected device or service. As services and devices become dependent on online services to even function (smart locks that cannot unlock if Facebook is unavailable, critical infrastructure connected to the Internet directly - we see this already and the next will be cars that cannot start or brake/orient without connectivity...). Add into this mix the possibility for hackers to use 5G devices to coordinate DDoS attacks on scales larger than the Internet can withstand.

The potential for public safety to be impacted by security vulnerabilities present on devices on the Next Generation Internet is staggering. Which is why we need to focus on designing this Internet, and the devices that will occupy it, safely now and not in 10 years, because the average lifetime of a device is long and the design phases for some types of devices is almost as long.

This is the reason I am volunteering for the grass roots group called I am the Cavalry - to promote awareness around the need for safety by design before the potential impacts to public safety materialize.

https://www.iamthecavalry.org/