Security lifecycle management of devices in a communications network

A device comprising one or more processors and one or more memories storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the device to perform operations comprising:

• establishing, based on an authentication of the device, a secure connection with a trust enabling infrastructure (TEI) in a service providing service capabilities through a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) to a plurality of applications, the service being provided as a middleware;
• sending, to the TEI, a credential registration message;
• receiving, from the TEI, a response to the credential registration message, wherein the response comprises an identifier of a network function in the service to which the device is to attach and one or more parameters comprising a parameter associated with a security credential, and wherein the identified network function is determined based on the credential registration message and one or more security policies comprising one or more rules for assigning devices to the network function in the service;
• and
• attaching, based on the identifier of the network function and the parameter associated with the security credential, to the network function.

An apparatus comprising one or more processors and memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the apparatus to implement a trust enabling infrastructure (TEI) in a service providing service capabilities through a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) to a plurality of applications, the service being provided as a middleware, the instructions further causing the apparatus to perform operations comprising:

• authenticating, by the TEI in the service, a device by performing an attestation check;
• receiving, by the TEI and from the device, a credential registration message;
• determining, by the TEI and based on the credential registration message, one or more security policies comprising one or more rules for assigning devices to a network function in the service;
• and
• sending, by the TEI and to the device, a response comprising an identifier of the network function and one or more parameters comprising a parameter associated with a security credential, wherein the identifier and the parameter associated with the security credential facilitate the device attaching to the network function.