As the global adoption of emerging technologies continues to intensify vulnerability to cyber threats, now is a good time to remind ourselves of CableLabs’ ongoing efforts to keep everyone secure. CableLabs takes pride in making every online experience safer and more efficient, expanding the ways enterprises can operate and improving the ways we all individually connect and live online.

Security and privacy make up one of the key focus areas of the CableLabs Technology Vision, created in collaboration with our member operators. Our goal is to help them meet today’s security needs and prepare for the future by implementing scalable, adaptable security solutions that can keep pace with evolving technology.

The advancements coming from CableLabs’ Security and Privacy Technologies team include work that stretches back over the last decade, improving the microsegmentation tooling for home and enterprise networks, device identity and the ability to deliver custom network experiences to specific devices. In particular, these security and privacy technologies have four engagement points where our work touches various types of subscriber needs: the home, the enterprise, the core network and protocols at the internet level.

At Home

CableLabs’ focus in the home starts at the cable modem but expands to the home router or access point when those are distinct pieces of equipment. In 2021, CableLabs published a Best Common Practice for Gateway Device Security document, which describes ideal security scenarios for these devices. This NIST-referenced document was the outcome of a global industry initiative that involved security experts from operators and device manufacturers, including representatives from CableOne, Charter, Cisco, Cogeco, Comcast, CommScope, Cox, Liberty Global, MaxLinear, MediaCom, Rogers/Shaw and Technicolor.

Inside the home, CableLabs has engaged and led efforts in the IoT security space from the early days of Wi-Fi Alliance, Universal Plug and Play (UPnP), Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC), AllSeen Alliance, Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) and finally the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) and Matter, where we work today to secure devices in the home and to help standardize approaches to security and data privacy.

For Enterprises

At the enterprise level, CableLabs works with our members to deliver the services and protection technologies that businesses need to be able to operate in today’s complex environments. We have strong engagement in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) mitigation work, and we provide tools to network operators to help protect their clients from attack and to identify threats. CableLabs engages in this work with other bodies in the community, taking a leadership role in making the internet safer for businesses.

One example of our enterprise work is our leadership in (and continued contribution to) the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (M3AAWG) Ransomware Active Attack Response Best Common Practices document, in which we help lay out the decisions and necessary steps that organizations face when they’re victimized by ransomware attacks. This document helps them navigate those chaotic waters, get their enterprise back to smooth operation and become increasingly protected going forward.

In the Core Network

In September 2024, we published the CableLabs Zero Trust and Infrastructure Security Best Common Practice document, aiming to adapt zero trust architecture principles to the network operator environment. This work — also the result of network operator collaboration and contribution — today serves as an industry guideline for securing infrastructure elements.

CableLabs’ role in the core and access networks doesn’t stop at DOCSIS® networks or zero trust. Also in 2024, the Security and Privacy Technologies team contributed to the optical networking security realm in the form of the SIEPON specification (IEEE SIEPON.4 ONU Authentication) and PON specifications (IEEE P1904.4/D2.1).

Our successful engagement track record in 3GPP, advocating for security within the mobile networks, yielded 19 accepted contributions into the mobile standards in 2024. Across all these fields (mobile, HFC and optical networking), CableLabs has been closely tracking and actively working with both operators and vendors to monitor and adopt advancements in cryptography.

The objective of this working group is to improve industry agility in responding to potential future threats, as well as to adopt advanced tooling and continue to protect subscriber confidentiality, traffic integrity and service availability.

Secure Network Protocols

Connecting computers, phones, tablets, game systems, smart home appliances and all kinds of other devices requires a secure connection to the service provider. And these connections wouldn’t be possible without secure network protocols, which enable devices to exchange information reliably.

CableLabs’ strong history of securing protocols and devices is evidenced in the continued evolution of DOCSIS technology. Combine the updates to protocol security in DOCSIS 4.0 networks with the digital certificates backed by one of the world’s largest PKIs, and you have a winning combination working to keep subscribers safer in any environment.

CableLabs’ contributions aren’t all contained within our work with industry partners. In 2024, we published the initial Routing Security Framework Profile, which serves as a guide to routing engineers and operators of an autonomous system and for use of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). This document was followed later in 2024 with an update that incorporated Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 updates from NIST. It is also listed as an example of a community framework profile on the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) website.

This document was a chance to convene experts to weigh in on how to best operationalize routes and route changes within the BGP, how to establish and manage the Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI), how to sign routing updates and how to validate other route updates. Our work in routing security has been cited as a resource by multiple government stakeholders in their recent actions and initiatives as we continue to engage in public-private stakeholder working groups to advance the security of routing infrastructure.

Further CableLabs Security and Privacy Work

The contributions of our Security and Privacy Technologies team support CableLabs’ mission to deliver secure online experiences to global broadband internet subscribers. Our Custom Connectivity work has helped bridge the digital divide by providing pole-mounted Wi-Fi to unconnected and unserved users in developing regions of the world

Additionally, recent contributions to the industry have been published in several fields (e.g., blockchains, privacy, gateway device security, open-source software, routing, critical infrastructure, mobile security) and have been accepted by prestigious journals and conferences (e.g., ACM WiSec, IEEE Software, IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy) or recognized by seminal agencies (e.g., FCC, NIST, the U.S. White House Office of the National Cyber Director).