A coalition of seven governments has launched a set of voluntary cybersecurity and cyber resilience principles for 6G, the next generation of mobile networks.
The Global Coalition on Telecoms (GCOT) was established in October 2023 to set out a shared commitment to support secure, resilient and innovative telecommunication networks.
Founded by Australia, Canada, Japan, the UK and the US, the group was joined by Finland and Sweden during Mobile World Congress 2026.
At the event in Barcelona, GCOT also launched the 6G Security and Resilience Principles with the support of leading industry partners, including AT&T, BT, Ericsson, NVIDIA, Nokia, Qualcomm, Rakuten Mobile, Samsung Electronics and Virgin Media O2 and Vodafone.
While 6G standardization works are still in their infancy, with key industry groups targeting initial commercial rollouts in 2029-2030, GCOT believe broad predictions can be made based on the IMT-2030 Framework and initial 3GPP 6G studies.
For instance, the coalition assessed that 6G will mean that more network functions will be virtualized, that disaggregated architectures and standardized interfaces will enable better visibility for security and better multi-vendor integration and that AI will be supported natively both to improve network performance and enable new user services.
GCOT has developed four security principles and four resilience principles based on these predictions in order to help build 6G standards, covering resilience to cyber and physical attacks, supply chains, and reliability.
The guidelines are also intended as a guide for all relevant stakeholders, according to a statement published by the UK government on March 3.
Rob Joyce, director of mobile access engineering at Virgin Media O2, commented: “Although the commercial launch of 6G networks is some years away, it is helpful to establish at an early stage the principles that will guide the development of 6G and ensure its success.”
GCOT’s Security and Resilience Objectives for 6G Networks
The GCOT 6G guidelines aim to point to some of the critical security and resilience considerations that the coalition member states and industry partners recommend prioritizing in the ongoing development of the 6G system.
These include:
- Containment: the 6G system should limit the ability of malicious actors or software to propagate through the network
- Confidentiality: the 6G system should be built by design to protect the privacy of user data and able to process and provide data confidentially (e.g. it is secure against eavesdropping or attackers, even for data shared over channels which are not physically secure or known)
- Integrity: the 6G system should maintain the integrity of data providing guarantees that any changes to data, as it travels through the network, are perceptible, as well as assure the integrity of network infrastructure itself
- Resilience: the 6G system should be measurably resilient and able to maintain service availability for users even in challenging circumstance, in particular for requirements like emergency or first-responder voice and data services, which must be future proofed in the transition to 6G
- Regulatory compliance: the operators of 6G systems should be able to fulfil the requirements of relevant national regulations and legislation
GCOT further emphasized that future 6G infrastructure should incorporate robust failover mechanisms to ensure uninterrupted connectivity during disruptions.
It also highlighted the importance of integrating complementary and alternative positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) solutions beyond GNSS to minimize vulnerability to signal loss or interference.
Finally, GCOT advocated for the adoption of Open RAN frameworks and guiding principles to support flexibility, interoperability, and innovation within the network ecosystem.
“The technological innovation anticipated from 6G, twinned with its central role in national infrastructure (as with current mobile networks), will require fundamental protections and mitigations to be considered from the outset,” reads the GCOT announcement shared by the UK government.
“That will require action on the part of governments, telecommunications providers and those supplying the systems they rely on, including cloud and data infrastructure. It will also mean close working with domestic and regional regulatory bodies and through public-private partnerships, where appropriate, to ensure common understanding of threats and robust compliance.”
Ronnie Vasishta, senior VP of telecom at NVIDIA, welcomed the initiative and said his company is “building the AI-RAN platforms that translate these guiding principles into operational reality in software-defined, AI-native 6G networks.”
Eva Fogelström, head of security research at Ericsson, said: “We look forward to working with all partners involved in GCOT to ensure the next phase of advanced connectivity is not only high-performing and resilient, but also inclusive, sustainable, and future-ready.”
