Novel Open RAN implementation guidance released

New guidelines on adopting an Open Radio Access Network architecture have been released by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the National Security Agency, SecurityWeek reports. Aside from facilitating increased interoperability, virtualization, artificial intelligence-enabled intelligence, cloudification, and innovation, Open RAN also presents new security issues for mobile network operators, according to the general-purpose document. "By nature, an open ecosystem that involves a disaggregated multi-vendor environment requires specific focus on changes to the threat surface area at the interfaces between technologies integrated via the architecture," said CISA and the NSA. MNOs have also been urged by the federal agencies to deal with security issues stemming from vendor components and open source software utilization. The document has also recommended addressing distributed denial-of-service attacks and other cloud infrastructure concerns pertaining to Open RAN. "As standards are developed and adopted by equipment manufacturers, software developers, integrators, and mobile network operators, these security considerations may be mitigated through the adoption of standards and industry best practices," said the document.