Cellusys: Generative AI Is Redefining Telecom Security, but Without Signalling Intelligence, Governance and Real-Time Visibility, It Increases Risk
Dublin, Ireland – 17 December 2025 – Cellusys, a global specialist in telecom signalling security, has contributed to a major new white paper published by the Global Cybersecurity Forum (GCF) in collaboration with The Saudi Telecom Company (stc), exploring how Generative AI can enhance the protection of next generation telecom networks.
The white paper, Enhancing the Protection of Next Generation Networks with Generative AI, led by Nokia, brings together industry leaders from across telecoms and cybersecurity to address a rapidly accelerating shift in the threat landscape. Generative AI is already being actively used by attackers and fraudsters to automate attacks, exploit protocol complexity, and operate at a scale that traditional security models cannot match.
Cellusys, as an industry leading unified signalling firewall provider, was asked to contribute to the publication, underscoring the growing importance of the signalling layer as one of the most commercially and operationally exposed attack surfaces in modern mobile networks.
As telecom networks evolve towards 5G, cloud-native cores, and increasingly autonomous operations, the white paper highlights a critical reality for operators: traditional, rule-based and IT-centric security approaches are no longer sufficient to protect signalling, roaming, and interconnect environments. These legacy models struggle to keep pace with AI-enabled threats and increasingly contribute to false positives, operational inefficiency, and avoidable service disruption.
From Cellusys’ perspective, the implications for the industry extend beyond security teams alone. Signalling-layer failures directly impact roaming revenue, privacy, personal security, service availability, regulatory compliance, and customer trust, making AI adoption in telecom security an economic and strategic decision, not simply a technical one.
Crucially, Cellusys argues that Generative AI without deep signalling intelligence is effectively blind in telecom environments. Generic AI models that lack protocol-level context risk misinterpreting normal roaming behaviour as malicious, or worse, failing to detect sophisticated signalling abuse altogether. In either case, operators face increased operational cost, degraded service quality, and heightened regulatory exposure.
“Generative AI is already reshaping how telecom attacks are executed,” said Rashad Bakleh, Head of Security Solutions at Cellusys. “The challenge for operators is not whether to adopt AI, but how to do so responsibly. In signalling and roaming environments, AI must be grounded in real-time, domain-specific intelligence and deployed with clear governance. Autonomous security decisions taken without that context and control are not just ineffective, they can introduce serious commercial and regulatory risk.”
The white paper also reinforces that autonomous security models are becoming inevitable as networks scale and threats accelerate. However, Cellusys stresses that autonomy without governance is reckless in environments that underpin national infrastructure and global communications. Explainability, policy controls, and human oversight remain essential to ensuring trust in AI-driven security outcomes.
Equally critical is the role of real-time data and network observability. Effective use of Generative AI in telecom security depends on continuous, high-fidelity visibility across signalling, roaming, and interconnect traffic. Without real-time observability and trusted data pipelines, AI systems cannot make accurate decisions, regardless of their sophistication.
“This is not a tooling decision or an AI experiment,” added Bakleh. “It is a long-term security architecture choice. Operators that treat Generative AI as a bolt-on risk repeating past security failures at greater speed and scale. Those that invest in domain intelligence, governance, and real-time visibility will be far better positioned to protect their networks and their businesses.”
Cellusys’ contribution to the white paper reflects its ongoing focus on advancing AI-driven signalling security in a way that aligns with the operational, commercial, and regulatory realities of global telecom networks.
The full white paper, Enhancing the Protection of Next Generation Networks with Generative AI, is available to download from the Global Cybersecurity Forum.
About Cellusys
Cellusys provides award-winning signalling security, roaming, and analytics solutions to mobile operators globally. Trusted by Tier 1 networks and groups across 180+ countries, Cellusys empowers operators to deliver safer, smarter, and more reliable connectivity.
To learn more, visit www.cellusys.com.
Read more about Cellusys signalling security solutions & roaming solutions.