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The Path to Future-Ready Government IT
5G’s impact on the cybersecurity landscape
5G will raise new cybersecurity challenges and also enable new solutions. The
number of connected devices and the amount of associated data being collected, consumed, analyzed and stored are growing exponentially as agencies add internet- of-things sensors and remote workers to their networks. Securing these expanding environments means securing service providers, agency users, applications, data stores, networks, data analysis platforms and devices of all kinds.
Endpoint security is a crucial component of those efforts, along with a zero trust security framework that enables agencies
to continuously authenticate users and proactively monitor activities for signs of suspicious behavior or anomalies.
In addition, the multitude of new services that 5G makes possible come with a variety of service-level management requirements. Network slicing is one approach to accommodating differences in service-level agreements on a per-service basis. Network slicing involves logically segmenting services and the resources they consume based on a service profile and associated quality-of-service requirements. With network slicing, agencies can segment, aggregate, deliver and manage services based on service-level agreements and requirements.
Although unique and segmented, network slices run on shared infrastructure, which means administrators need to ensure they have strong security solutions in place for prevention and detection at both the infrastructure and application layers. As agencies and service providers
move toward converged multi-cloud environments, the level of complexity involved in managing and securing
5G services across network slices
and clouds increases significantly. Implementing a common infrastructure platform foundation across all clouds
can dramatically reduce complexity by providing administrators with consistent security capabilities and operating models across all clouds.
The underlying architecture of any solution should include hardware
and software with industry-leading cybersecurity features provided by companies that pursue the best principles in supply chain security. Infrastructure platforms that give administrators the ability to define and set security policy and then inherit or federate that policy across multiple clouds can greatly improve the overall security posture, minimize opportunities for exploitation due to cross- platform inconsistencies, and increase service monitoring and management efficiency, whether for mission-critical
5G services or general data storage and analysis platforms.
Dell’s Supply Chain Risk Management framework mirrors the comprehensive risk management framework in the National Infrastructure Protection Plan, which outlines how government and the private sector can work together to mitigate risks and meet security objectives.
Making strategic
investments in 5G
Laying the right foundation is the most important strategic investment agencies can make in 5G. It involves designing scalable, distributed edge architectures; choosing
the appropriate platform for cloud-native service delivery; implementing workflow
automation solutions and capabilities; adopting DevOps models; and most important, building and implementing strategies for securing and managing the delivery of 5G services. Ultimately, the goal is to implement a platform that is capable of supporting today’s application and service delivery requirements while ensuring that the platform is built with enough flexibility to evolve and support the adoption of future use cases and services.
Success with 5G also involves working closely with industry partners. A rich partner ecosystem enables agencies
to select best-in-breed products and technologies. It takes an ecosystem to meet the government’s technology challenges, and agencies must be able to evaluate new technologies, receive input from a variety of sources along the way and manage those dialogs for the purpose of continuous improvement.
Disaggregation, platform composability and open integration are key investments that will generate strong returns for agencies looking to avoid vendor lock-
in, make it easy to remove and replace applications, and avoid proprietary, dedicated hardware. An open, modular framework provides agencies with the highest level of architectural flexibility,
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