5G and 6G wireless technologies have security issues

5G and 6G wireless network technologies promise faster speeds and greater reliability, but they have security problems that must be addressed before they launch, researchers say. Network security concerns remain an issue with the upcoming 5G and 6G wireless network standards. That's because security measures being aren't being adopted in new 5G standards, and there's a newly discovered potential for Man-in-the-Middle attacks in terahertz-based 6G networks, multiple research studies have discovered. One of those studies — a formal analysis of 5G authentication conducted by scientists from ETH Zurich, the University of Lorraine/INRIA, and the University of Dundee — found that criminals will be able intercept 5G communications and steal data because “critical security gaps are present,” the group says in their press release. That’s in part because “security goals are underspecified” and there’s a “lack of precision” in the 3GPP standards, they say. In a second, unrelated report published this month by researchers at Brown University, Rice University, and University at Buffalo, scientists have discovered serious vulnerabilities in 5G’s successor: terahertz data communications networks.