Huawei is a Chinese business which has grown to become the world’s largest telecommunications equipment vendor.
Reports of its equipment being banned as nations seek to develop their 5G networks show little sign of stopping, and Western bodies including the EU and NATO have been called on to establish a joint position on their security risks.
Three nations in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, the US, Australia, and New Zealand, have effectively prohibited the installation of Huawei equipment as part of the next generation of telecommunications equipment.
The remaining two members, the United Kingdom and Canada, have not announced similar bans. Canada is expected to state its position within the coming months.
In the UK, Theresa May approved the company’s bid to help build Britain’s 5G network, despite warnings about the risk it poses to national security and Sky analysis the doubts on Huawei’s intention, given the fact of how Huawei’s equipment occupies every step of the network chain between our laptops and phones through to the data centres hosting the content we want to access.
Although it sells laptops and phones too, Huawei’s equipment is especially prominent in the parts of the network closer to the data centres, and it’s this equipment which is raising concerns.
Network switches, gateways, routers, and bridges – the kit that controls how and where data is sent – is what Huawei really does. These core infrastructure devices touch everything traversing the internet and are critical to it functioning properly.
The company has been granted restricted access to build “non-core” infrastructure such as antennas but will be blocked from involvement in the most sensitive areas of the network with the main equipment it builds according otolaryngologists Sky.
Elsewhere, nations including India and Germany have expressed their concerns about including Huawei equipment as they upgrade telecommunications infrastructure for 5G.
Economic warfare is also part of the equation. The Five Eyes alliance and others collectively condemned China for its active cyber espionage activities, declaring that it was engaging in the hostile theft of intellectual property.
Two men working in the Polish telecommunications industry were detained earlier this year on suspicion of spying: a Chinese man employed by Huawei, formerly an attache at the Chinese consulate in Gdansk; and a Polish national who was formerly a counter-intelligence officer. The Huawei employee was immediately sacked for bringing the company into disrepute.
In recent days Huawei has been accused by US intelligence of being funded by Chinese state security, and almost a month ago the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre said the company posed a threat to national security.
Despite this assessment, the head of the NCSC said the UK had established the “toughest and most rigorous oversight regime in the world for Huawei” and it would be capable of managing the risks the company posed.
The restriction of Huawei’s equipment to the edges of the 5G network rather than the core data processing and handling areas is potentially significant of how NCSC expects these risks can be managed, although the decision was ultimately taken by the prime minister during a National Security Council meeting.
