| CPC H04W 12/02 (2013.01) [H04W 12/037 (2021.01); H04W 88/182 (2013.01)] | 19 Claims |

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1. A method for protecting sensitive data to be transmitted over a 5G or subsequent generation network, the method comprising:
receiving or generating a service based interface (SBI) request message;
identifying a next-hop network function (NF) of the SBI request message;
determining, from a registered profile of the next-hop NF, whether the next-hop NF supports handling of encrypted SBI request message parameters; and
in response to determining that the next-hop NF supports handling of encrypted SBI request message parameters:
encrypting selected SBI request message parameters, wherein the selected SBI request message parameters include Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)-defined subscriber or subscription-identifying parameters at the SBI request message level, rather than a transport layer message level;
adding one or more headers to the SBI request message or updating one or more headers in the SBI request message to facilitate identification and decryption of the encrypted SBI request message parameters; and
transmitting the SBI request message to the next-hop NF.
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