Green Sheet explores 5G with Utimaco's Mario Galatovic

5G ultra-wideband technology began rolling out in April 2019 and continues to make its way around the globe, creating an infrastructure designed to support agile video streaming and multi-device connectivity. The Green Sheet recently interviewed Mario Galatovic, vice president of products and alliances at Utimaco about the changes we can expect with 5G technology.

5G can power high speed, low latency deployments, which may include anything from gaming to autonomous vehicles to smart homes and cities. What are some ways in which payment service providers (PSPs) can leverage 5G technology?

Any increase in speed is going to increase the number of transactions being carried out and is going to have an effect on PSPs, but in the case of 5G we are going to see an increase in transactions coming from sources like IoT devices. For example, we could see anything from machines in connected factories being able to order supplies or orders for groceries from connected refrigerators. Although these are currently rare, they will become more common, and PSPs—and the entire payment ecosystem—need to reckon with the regulatory and security implications of this.

As EU regulators create guidelines for verifying users on networks to protect public key infrastructure (PKI), how will Utimaco participate to help safeguard the key encryption process?

The hardware that powers PKI has been at the core of Utimaco's offering for many years, and we are acknowledged experts in this field. In terms of participation, we already work closely with a number of European governments on a huge variety of use cases, so we fully expect to see our technical solutions become part of any future improvements to the continent's security.

How can communication service providers customize and implement the Nokia and Utimaco security solution to facilitate secure user authentication, data transfer and device estate migrations from 2G to 5G connections?

Nokia's UDM solution is following the 3GPP standard, so there is a limited need for customization. With that said, it is only Nokia that can do any customization.

How can the Nokia and Utimaco solution enhance Nokia Subscriber Data Management to protect customer data security and reinforce endpoint security?

The Nokia and Utimaco security solution processes customer identity and other personal information in a physically protected hardware security module, ensuring that even inside-attackers cannot access such information in plain text or manipulate it unnoticed. That same high level of protection applies to network keys and prevents customer data from being intercepted by false base stations or eavesdropping devices like IMSI catchers.

What steps can payments industry stakeholders take to ensure secure and frictionless 5G deployments across disparate networks, regulatory landscapes and device populations?

Stakeholders must make sure that not only the communication channel in the in the networks, but also the involved edge devices are secured. This security can be achieved in a compliant manner for any device by making sure the identities are generated in a secure environment and injected via approved mechanisms. The architecture needs to be built in a compliant manner according to different regulations.

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