LONDON – The U.S. administration believes that European lawmakers are beginning to take its concerns over Huawei onboard. An official told reporters that “people are understanding our point” about the Chinese telecoms giant.
A Security Risk
Speaking in Barcelona where Mobile World Congress is taking place, Robert Strayer, U.S. State Department ambassador for cyber and international communications, said: “People are understanding our point that we are making about the security risks that are inherent in this technology coming from China.”
“We know that Huawei itself has been duplicitous and deceitful,” Mr. Strayer added (via Reuters). Both Germany and the UK indicated recently they might be softening their stance towards the company.
The U.S has been urging other Western governments to not use Huawei products while developing 5G networks. It believes the firm is spying on behalf of the Chinese Government despite its repeated denials that this is the case. Huawei Chairman Guo Ping reiterated this point Sunday whilst speaking in Barcelona.
On CBC Spark this weekend they had a discussion about Huawei technology and the risks they may pose.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/what-s-the-real-danger-of-relying-on-huawei-s-5g-technology-1.5024324
The first was what everyone is talking about; spying, but they said that was less an issue than stated.
However equally or greater risks are posed by what might appear from a firmware patch pushed out at a later date. It may get certified as clean NOW but tomorrow it could bge a much bigger issue. Then there are the risks of it changing the data that goes through it at the behest of China. All packets get through, but those with a particular header are altered, impacting this reported stock value, or that tactical number. Lastly even if they don’t push out any changes (China has a law requiring any products manufactured by a Chinese company to install back doors whenever the government asks) if there are holes, due to programming errors at manufacture, China may just tell Huawei to not fix them or tell anyone so they can use them. The NSA and CIA did this already, by just not telling anyone about vulnerabilities they found.