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But if the 4G equipment doing the encrypting tunneling at both ends is potentially compromised how does that encryption help? Also, nearly everything is HTTPS

But if the 4G equipment doing the encrypting tunneling at both ends is potentially compromised how does that encryption help? Also, nearly everything is HTTPS these days so I still don't see a massive attack vector here (at least one that wouldn't be spotted immediately like MITMing TLS connections). I think the much greater "threat" rather than messing round with traffic itself is just to shut down masses of the towers and core networks remotely. In that case, switching off 4G would be way worse as (at least in the UK) all networks doing 5G require a 4G signal as well to bond against. So having separate 5G equipment wouldn't help one iota if the 4G stuff is down.

inkyoto 5y ago
> But if the 4G equipment doing the encrypting tunneling at both ends is potentially compromised how does that encryption help? The major attack vector for the compromised 4G equipment is the remote deactivation (or a wipeout or both) of it by an adversary. Breaking the encryption on the fly for volumes of traffic traversing mobile core networks is still technologically challenging. Hence the plain text communication can still be considered somewhat protected.
inkyoto 5y ago
More on TLS and MITM. Even though our security unit deems TLS v1.2 and, until recently, v1.1 (!) to be secure and acceptable for the purpose of encrypting sensitive datasets in motion, I vehemently disagree with them and consider anything that is not TLS v1.3 to be insecure. The best compromise I have managed to coax out of the security unit is that the cost of a MITM for TLS v1.2 is still prohibitevely expensive for most players with nefarious intentions, albeit it is not entirely improbable.