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GSMA NESAS

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The GSMA Network Equipment Security Assurance Scheme (NESAS) is a voluntary, global security assurance framework jointly led by the GSMA and 3GPP. It was established to provide a universal, industry-driven security evaluation for mobile network equipment — primarily targeting 4G/LTE and 5G infrastructure — that avoids the fragmentation of country-specific security requirements. NESAS operates through two complementary components: first, an audit of the vendor’s development and product lifecycle processes (covering secure design, implementation, testing, and vulnerability handling), conducted by GSMA-appointed auditing organizations; second, a product evaluation against 3GPP-defined Security Assurance Specifications (SCAS), performed by ISO/IEC 17025 accredited security test laboratories. The GSMA manages scheme governance (accreditation, dispute resolution, publication of results), while 3GPP’s SA3 working group defines the technical security requirements and test cases in SCAS documents. The scheme is currently at NESAS v3.0 (specifications published early 2025), which introduces revised security requirements and expands coverage to include virtualized network functions. NESAS is voluntary — no government mandates it — but it is increasingly referenced by national 5G security reviews and procurement requirements (including the EU 5G Toolbox), and major operators use NESAS assessment results as a procurement criterion. Evaluated vendors and their results are publicly listed on the GSMA website.

Red Hat’s role in the NESAS ecosystem is as the platform provider underneath the network equipment vendors being evaluated. Vendors like Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, and others run their 5G Core network functions (AMF, SMF, UPF, NSSF, etc.) on Red Hat OpenShift, and their RAN software on RHEL. When these vendors undergo NESAS SCAS evaluation for a specific network product, the security properties of the underlying platform directly affect the test results — if the OS or container runtime has vulnerabilities or misconfigurations, the network function inherits those weaknesses. Red Hat supports vendors’ NESAS compliance by providing a hardened, attestable platform: FIPS 140-3 validated cryptography satisfies SCAS requirements around secure communication; SELinux and seccomp profiles provide the workload isolation that SCAS test cases verify; the real-time kernel (for RAN DU) meets timing security requirements while maintaining hardening; and Red Hat’s secure supply chain (signed images, SLSA attestations, SBOMs) supports the vendor’s demonstration of secure development practices during the NESAS process audit. As NESAS v3.0 explicitly incorporates requirements for virtualized/containerized network functions, the security assurance of the CaaS platform becomes an increasingly integral part of the overall NESAS evaluation — making Red Hat’s security posture a direct contributor to its telco customers’ NESAS outcomes.

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3GPP SCAS

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3GPP Security Assurance Specifications (SCAS) are technical specifications developed by 3GPP’s SA3 working group (Security) that define security requirements and associated test cases for specific network product classes — each 3GPP-defined network function (AMF, SMF, UPF, gNB, MME, etc.) has its own SCAS document. 3GPP is the international standards body responsible for mobile telecommunications standards (comprising seven organizational partners covering Europe, US, China, Japan, Korea, India), making SCAS a globally recognized specification set rather than a national or regional scheme. Each SCAS document follows a structured approach: it identifies the assets of the network product class that require protection, performs a threat analysis describing how those assets can be exploited, defines security requirements (objectives) that mitigate the identified threats, and specifies concrete test cases to verify that a product implementation meets those requirements. SCAS specifications serve as the technical foundation for the GSMA NESAS scheme — when a vendor submits a network product for NESAS evaluation, accredited test laboratories evaluate it against the applicable SCAS test cases. Compliance is voluntary (there is no legal mandate to pass SCAS tests), but SCAS/NESAS evaluation results are increasingly used as a procurement requirement by telecom operators and are referenced by the EU 5G Security Toolbox and national security assessments. The list of adopted SCAS documents is maintained by the GSMA in FS.63 and continues to expand as 3GPP defines new network functions.

EU5G Certification Scheme

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The EU5G cybersecurity certification scheme is a certification framework being developed under the EU Cybersecurity Act (Regulation 2019/881), intended to provide harmonized security assurance for 5G network products and components across the European Union. ENISA established an Ad Hoc Working Group (AHWG) on EU5G in Q4 2021 following a European Commission request. As of mid-2026, the scheme has not been formally adopted and no complete public draft is available — making it the least mature of the three schemes requested under the CSA (after EUCC, adopted in January 2024, and EUCS, still stalled). Current work has focused on specific components: in June 2024, ENISA launched a public consultation on technical specifications for eUICC (embedded Universal Integrated Circuit Card) certification, which will be handled under the existing EUCC framework rather than a new standalone scheme. A broader EU NESAS scheme for 5G network products is under development, leveraging the existing GSMA NESAS/3GPP SCAS methodology. The scheme is expected to be voluntary once adopted, with assurance levels aligned to the CSA’s basic/substantial/high structure. Its practical significance will be shaped by the revised Cybersecurity Act (CSA2), proposed in January 2026, which strengthens ENISA’s mandate and may provide additional impetus for adoption.

CIS Benchmarks

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CIS Benchmarks are detailed, prescriptive security configuration guidelines published by the Center for Internet Security (CIS), a US-based non-profit organization. They are developed through a consensus process involving cybersecurity practitioners, vendors, and government agencies, and cover over 100 technology families — operating systems (Linux, Windows, macOS), cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), container orchestrators (Kubernetes, Docker), databases, web servers, and network devices. CIS Benchmarks are international in applicability — they are not tied to any single jurisdiction — and are referenced by regulatory frameworks worldwide (NIST, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, FedRAMP, NIS2 national implementations). Each benchmark provides two recommendation levels: Level 1 (practical hardening that does not significantly impact functionality) and Level 2 (defense-in-depth settings for high-security environments). CIS Benchmarks are voluntary — no law mandates CIS compliance directly — but they are frequently required by procurement contracts, industry standards, and as evidence of “reasonable security measures” in regulatory audits. The CIS also offers CIS Controls (formerly the SANS Top 20), a prioritized set of cybersecurity best practices, and the CIS Hardened Images program for pre-configured virtual machine images.