Telecom networks are the technological backbone of modern society, supporting essential functions ranging from daily communications to essential public and private services. Society is increasingly dependent on these networks and their reliability across critical sectors, such as energy, healthcare, and finance.
As such, security and resilience are essential conditions for telecom networks to deliver substantial end-user benefits, productivity gains and economic growth.
However, operators navigate an increasingly complex risk landscape with five main types of risks: system failures, third-party failures, natural phenomena, human errors, and malicious actions (cyber threats and physical sabotage). To manage these risks, telecom operators have integrated a comprehensive set of security and resilience measures into their everyday operations.
While security measures are set in place to protect against attacks, breaches, or other forms of interruptions, resilience measures seek to minimise the impact of those events on end-users. Both categories contain a host of specific measures employed by telecom operators, encompassing everything from personnel training, technical incident solutions, and automated responses.
This means that telecom operators use significant resources to ensure security and resilience. These costs are embedded throughout all network operations and are expected to rise substantially due to evolving threats and policy requirements.
Despite these significant efforts, our study identifies several structural and operational challenges, underscoring the need for targeted policy actions to strengthen security and resilience further.
Download the publication to learn more about those in-depth challenges below, and/or read the visual summary here.
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