The combination of motivation, intent and a high-level capability enables states to perpetrate attacks that can be very complex and have a major impact on essential services for the general public, deteriorating the trust in mobile technologies and operators. For example, states or state-backed actors can cause large-scale outage or significant disturbance of telecommunications services by exploiting undocumented functions or attacking interdependent critical infrastructures (e.g. power supply). In relation to state and state-backed actors, a particular threat stems from cyber offensive initiatives of non-EU countries. Several Member States have identified that certain non-EU countries represent a particular cyber threat to their national interests, based on previous modus operandi of attacks by certain entities or on the existence of an offensive cyber programme of a given third state against them. It is also noted that insiders or subcontractors can in certain circumstances also be considered potential threat actors, especially if leveraged by states as they could be used as a channel for a state to gain access to critical target assets. Further categories of actors could also be considered to have an important motivation to target 5G networks in order to serve their interest, i.e. organised crime groups, corporate entities seeking to gain competitive advantage in the technological field through Intellectual Property (IP) theft or cyber terrorists. -Network assets CATEGORIES OF ELEMENTS AND FUNCTIONS EXAMPLES OF KEY ELEMENTS Core network functions User Equipment Authentication, roaming and Session Management Functions User Equipment data transport functions Access policy management Registration and authorization of network services Storage of end-user and network data Link with third-party mobile networks Exposure of core network functions to external applications Attribution of end-user devices to network slices NFV management and network orchestration (MANO) Management systems and supporting services (other than MANO) Radio Access network CRITICAL CRITICAL Security management systems MODERATE/HIGH Billing and other support systems such as network performance Base stations HIGH 39