5G security guidance series by NSA, CISA addresses manufacturers

The National Security Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued the last in a series of guidance documents for securing cloud infrastructure and resources on 5G networks, which urged networking equipment manufacturers to ensure integrity at the hardware level, according to Nextgov. “Moving up from the hardware device level, ensuring the integrity of the container stack (worker nodes, Kubernetes cluster and containers) is critical for preventing attacks and denying cyber actors the ability to persist,” according to the guidance. The guidance recommends Special Publication 800-193 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology as a useful resource that provides information on how to establish “a method where each software module in a system boot process is required to measure the next module before transitioning control.” Firmware should also be updateable, according to the agencies, which further said that “network designers and operators should pick devices which provide NIST SP 800-193 guided protection, detection and recovery of all rootkit-able firmware.”