What is it about?
Future 6G networks are expected to support intelligent applications such as autonomous vehicles, immersive virtual reality, smart cities, and large-scale Internet of Things systems. These advances rely heavily on artificial intelligence, edge computing, and massive data sharing, which also introduce new security and privacy risks. This article surveys how wireless networks are evolving from 5G to 6G and explains the key security and privacy challenges that arise along the way. It discusses both long-standing threats inherited from earlier generations and new risks caused by AI-driven networking, distributed learning, and quantum computing. The paper also reviews emerging protection techniques and international standardization efforts, helping readers understand what must be addressed to make future 6G networks trustworthy and safe.
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Why is it important?
As 6G networks move from concept to reality, security and privacy risks could directly affect critical services such as transportation, healthcare, and digital infrastructure. This work is timely because it consolidates fragmented research across networking, cryptography, and AI security into a unified view focused on 6G protocols and standards. By identifying gaps in current protection mechanisms and highlighting post-quantum and AI-related threats, the survey helps researchers, policymakers, and industry practitioners design more secure, privacy-aware 6G systems before large-scale deployment.
Perspectives
From my perspective, the transition to 6G represents a shift from performance-driven networking to trust-centric design. Writing this survey reinforced how deeply security, privacy, and standardization are intertwined, especially as AI becomes embedded in network control and decision-making. I hope this work encourages closer collaboration between researchers, standards bodies, and regulators so that security and privacy are treated as core design principles rather than afterthoughts in future wireless networks.
Mengmeng Yang
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: From 5G to 6G: A Survey on Security, Privacy, and Standardization Pathways, ACM Computing Surveys, December 2025, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3785467.
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