Everything else a business does in Panama, from banking to logistics, runs over telecom networks. That makes them critical infrastructure, and it makes their security a legal and commercial question as much as a technical one. Ericsson, one of the largest network equipment manufacturers in the world, has published an analysis of the threats these networks face.
Why telecom networks are attacked
Ericsson groups the attackers by what they want. Three motives cover most of the activity it describes:
- espionage and surveillance;
- financial gain;
- disruption or sabotage.
Of the three, profit drives the most common attack. Ransomware remains the leading threat, and it increasingly targets high-profile organizations in sectors such as manufacturing and services.
What makes 5G harder to protect
5G is more secure by design than earlier generations, but it is also more complex. It converges with traditional information technology (IT), so attackers who already know how to break into ordinary IT systems can now apply the same methods to a telecom network.
The older networks do not disappear when 5G arrives. Ericsson expects 4G and 3G to remain in service for years, and attacks routed through the interconnections between generations will continue and will be harder to detect. Securing only the new equipment leaves the older door open.
The move to the cloud adds a third layer. As critical 5G infrastructure migrates to hybrid and public clouds, the traditional network perimeter stops existing, and Ericsson points to a zero-trust architecture as the way to protect it. The industry's answer on the equipment side is NESAS, the framework of the GSMA and 3GPP that sets security requirements for how network equipment is developed and maintained over its life cycle.
Panama as a connectivity hub
Panama is a regional connectivity node, with submarine cables, data centers and an international banking center, and it is moving ahead with 5G. For a foreign company, that concentration is part of the case for investing in Panama. It is also what turns network security into public policy.
Telecommunications are regulated by the National Authority of Public Services (Autoridad Nacional de los Servicios Públicos, ASEP), which administers the radio spectrum and the concessions that operators need. Its decisions on spectrum and network security are now also national security decisions.
The legal exposure after a network incident
An attack on a network rarely stays technical. It usually touches personal data, which in Panama brings in Law 81 of 2019 on personal data protection (Ley 81 de 2019). The same law shapes how companies write confidentiality duties into their contracts, as the guide to confidentiality agreements in Panama explains.
The attack itself is usually a computer crime, and cross-border cases depend on international cooperation. Panama relies on the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime (Convenio de Budapest) for that. Regional reports also list the protection of critical infrastructure, with telecom networks as the obvious example, among the region's unfinished tasks, as the WEF and OAS cybersecurity reports show.
What operators and companies should check
The practical response sits in contracts and internal controls, which is where a regulatory compliance program does its work. Ericsson's findings translate into four checks for any operator or company that depends on a network in Panama:
- Require network vendors to meet recognized security standards such as NESAS, and include security and incident notification clauses in the contract.
- Treat the security of legacy 4G and 3G networks as seriously as that of new 5G equipment.
- Design any migration to the cloud around a zero-trust architecture.
- Connect the incident response plan to the legal duties that apply to personal data.
How those clauses hold up in court depends on how the contract is drafted, a point covered in the guide to enforceable commercial contracts in Panama. For Panama, connectivity is a competitive advantage, and protecting it is what keeps that advantage.