How Telecommunications Companies Can Prevent Infrastructure and 5G Network Attacks

Telecom networks were once centralized, hardware-bound systems. Now they’re distributed, virtualized, and cloud-native—expanding the attack surface exponentially. And multi-vendor supply chains, legacy interconnects, and converging IT/OT systems create new openings for exploitation. Bad actors are taking advantage, as demonstrated by 2024’s Salt Typhoon attacks.

To outpace such threats, telecom security leaders can’t rely on static assessments or tabletop exercises. They need quantifiable proof that their teams, tools, and processes can withstand and recover from attacks. A modern cyber range delivers that capability—transforming readiness from a checkbox into a measurable, repeatable discipline.

Why Telecom Operators Are Adopting Cyber Ranges Now

Boards and regulators are demanding evidence that critical communications infrastructure can survive a cyberattack without disrupting national or economic stability. Bodies and frameworks such as FCC, NIS2, and NERC-CIP increasingly require operators to validate, not merely assert, control effectiveness.

By replicating production networks in a controlled, secure environment, cyber ranges let telecommunications companies emulate adversaries, stress-test defenses, and continuously measure security performance.

Within these high-fidelity environments, telecom security teams can:

• Benchmark and improve resilience. Live-fire simulations quantify detection, isolation, and recovery times across teams, sites, and vendors.

• Validate 5G and cloud-native security controls. Cyber ranges let engineers stress-test container isolation and virtualized network functions under realistic load.

• Enhance cross-team coordination. SOC, NOC, and incident-response teams rehearse together, eliminating silos and building operational muscle memory.

• Rationalize security investments. Repeatable testing reveals where tools overlap, where gaps persist, and where spend actually improves detection and response.

How Does It Work?

A cyber range creates a secure, simulated version of your production network, allowing teams to test and refine their defenses without affecting live services. It replicates the topology, applications, and security controls that make up your environment, so you can evaluate how your technology, people, and processes perform under real-world conditions.

Your existing security stack integrates directly into the range, from SIEM and SOAR platforms to firewalls and endpoint protection systems. This integration ensures your analysts see the same alerts, signals, and behaviors they would encounter in production. Scenarios can emulate a range of network-based attacks, including lateral movement across virtualized network functions and disruption attempts targeting core routing and orchestration layers.

This continuous testing allows organizations to validate the effectiveness of controls, identify coverage gaps, and measure how quickly incidents are detected and resolved. Over time, these exercises create actionable data that show measurable improvement in resilience and operational maturity.

Finding a Cyber Range to Strengthen Telecom Resilience

Not all cyber ranges deliver the fidelity or scalability required for telecom networks. When evaluating a platform, look for one purpose-built to model large, distributed architectures and the realities of 5G. Here’s what telecommunications industry CISOs should look for:

• Realistic replica of production environments: Your range should mirror radio access, transport, and core networks so teams can train within a true-to-life representation of your operational systems.
• Integrated tools: Your cyber range should integrate your existing SIEM, SOAR, endpoint, and network-monitoring tools—along with your orchestration, backup, and recovery platforms. You need to validate whether your detection stack can spot early indicators of compromise, block lateral movement across virtualized environments, and assess how restoration processes perform under live-attack conditions.
• Dynamic attack and activity emulation: Look for continuously updated attack content and user-behavior modeling to simulate real-world campaigns—from DDoS and ransomware to signaling-based exploits and insider threats.
• Comprehensive reporting and analytics: Effective ranges provide quantitative insight into detection accuracy, containment speed, and service-restoration performance, along with executive dashboards that translate results into business impact.
• Operational technology (OT) and 5G readiness: Because telecom increasingly intersects with OT and IoT systems, ensure the range can emulate industrial protocols, edge devices, and cross-domain attack paths.
• Individual, team, and AI-agent training and assessments: Cyber ranges should offer tailored scenarios for SOC analysts, NOC engineers, incident responders, crisis coordinators, and executives. In telecom, these might include lawful-intercept exposure, cross-border outage coordination, or service-level degradation from a signaling attack. Leading platforms extend this to AI-assisted training, allowing CISOs to evaluate how human and automated defenders collaborate in real time as AI-driven detection and remediation systems become operational.
• Live scoring and reporting: Live scoring converts simulation results into actionable insight. Reporting should highlight detection and containment times, recovery effectiveness, and customer-impact metrics such as SLA preservation and subscriber uptime. Executive dashboards should present these results in clear, business-relevant terms—showing how improved detection and faster recovery strengthen resilience and compliance posture.

See Your Telecom Cyber Range

By combining human, technical, and procedural testing, SimSpace helps telecom operators reduce risk, accelerate resilience, and prove effectiveness. To see what a SimSpace cyber range looks like for your organization, schedule a demo.