Mihoko Matsubara

Chief Cybersecurity Strategist, NTT Corporation

Mihoko Matsubara is Chief Cybersecurity Strategist at NTT Corporation, Tokyo, being responsible for cybersecurity thought leadership. She previously worked at the Japanese Ministry of Defense before her MA at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC on Fulbright. She served on Japanese government’s cybersecurity R&D policy committee between 2014 and 2018.

Mihoko is a prolific writer and has published articles from the Council on Foreign Relations, Lawfare, New America, the RUSI Journal, etc. She published a book on cybersecurity, attackers, defenders, and cyber threat intelligence in Japanese from the Shinchosha Publishing Co., Ltd in 2019. She has spoken at various engagements internationally such as RSA Conference 2018 and 2019 in San Francisco, the EU Cyber Forum 2019 in Brussels, and CyCon 2015 and 2019 in Tallinn, Estonia. She is Adjunct Fellow at the Pacific Forum, Honolulu, and Associate Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, London.

ABSTRACT

“IoT security challenges and opportunities in the 5G era”

This presentation aims to analyze IoT security issues and opportunities at both the policy and technical level in the 5G era. The world is now more concerned over IoT and 5G security due to growing security threats during the pandemic and mounting geopolitical tensions. Yet, this talk will also shed light on collaborative efforts by government and industry for a smart world and 5G security as well as financial incentives to embed security in new projects in their early stages.

Since the world is shifting their IT infrastructure to 5G gradually and there will be an exponential increase in IoT devices. Security-by-design is crucial to expand 5G-driven IoT technology. The Japanese government introduced tax incentives for IoT and 5G security in 2018 and 2020 respectively.

In 2019, NTT, Intel, and Sony established the Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) Global Forum to create next-generation technology and bring in a wide variety of companies to drive innovations in computing, communications, and network infrastructure, and create a smart world. Cybersecurity is one of the key areas that the Forum focuses on. Such a technology will be helpful for both 5G and beyond 5G.

Furthermore, Japan, Australia, and the US unveiled the Blue Dot Network in 2019. They take a multi-stakeholder initiative to evaluate and certify nominated infrastructure projects based upon adherence to commonly accepted principles and standards to promote market-driven, transparent, and financially sustainable infrastructure development in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.