Huawei blasts report questioning its security as Dutch authorities open investigation into espionage claims

Huawei supplies surveillance technology to China's government in Xinjiang, where one million people are interned for 're-education'

Huawei has lashed out at a report by the Henry Jackson Society, co-authored by a Conservative MP and a former scientific advisor to the Ministry of Defence, that argues that Huawei should be barred from every aspect of the UK's 5G networks.

"The People's Republic of China uses its sophisticated technical capabilities not only to control its own population (to an extreme and growing degree) but it also conducts remotely aggressive intelligence gathering operations on a global scale," wrote former head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove in the foreword.

China's military strategists perceive a world in which the military and the civilian will be fused into a single plane of conflict

He continued: "No part of the Communist Chinese state is ultimately able to operate free of the control exercised by its Communist Party leadership... China's military strategists perceive a world in which the military and the civilian will be fused into a single plane of conflict. The ability to control communications and the data that flows through its channels will be the route to exercise power over societies and other nations."

While Huawei claims that it is employee-owned, the report points out that it is, in reality, 98 per cent owned by a trade union committee and that, in China, trade unions are subordinate to the state - effectively making it state controlled.

In addition, China's government treats the company like a state-owned enterprise, lavishing it with up to $77bn in lines of credit to underwrite its rapid expansion in China and overseas.

AI & Machine Learning Live is returning to London on 3rd July 2019. Hear from the Met Office's Charles Ewen, AutoTrader lead data scientist Dr David Hoyle and the BBC's Noriko Matsuoka, among many others. Attendance is free to qualifying IT leaders and senior IT pros, but places are limited, so reserve yours now.

It also claims that it has a lock-in approach to network building that shuts out competition, and that the UK government's claim that Huawei will be restricted to the periphery of the country's 5G networks is irrelevant from a security perspective.

"The UK government says Huawei will be limited to ‘dumb' components like antennas, but our technical advisors have indicated that antennas can be modified at both the hardware and software level," claims the report.

Perhaps most damning of all, Huawei is also one of the technology providers to China's security forces in Xinjiang, supporting a repressive surveillance regime that includes re-education camps in which up to one million Muslim Uyghur people are interned. Some of this technology is also being exported to repressive states around the world as ‘smart city' technology.

Huawei is also one of the technology providers to China's security forces in Xinjiang

However, a Huawei spokesman claimed that the report was "politically motivated", and lacked hard facts to support its core security claims. "It fundamentally misunderstands the nature of modern China, global technology markets and of 5G… We are an independent, employee-owned company which does not take instructions from the Chinese government. In 32 years, there have been no significant cyber security issues with our equipment."

The company also criticised President Trump's Executive Order that effectively bans Huawei from US communications networks, claiming that shutting out Huawei would harm long-term US interests.

"Restricting Huawei from doing business in the US will not make the US more secure or stronger; instead, this will only serve to limit the US to inferior yet more expensive alternatives, leaving the US lagging behind in 5G deployment, and eventually harming the interests of US companies and consumers," claimed the statement.

The report from the Henry Jackson Society was released on the same day that a Dutch newspaper claimed that the Netherlands' intelligence agency AIVD is investigating allegations that Huawei had built-in a back door to hardware supplied to a major Dutch telecoms operator.

Huawei has refused to comment on the report.

The claims come just two weeks after the company was forced to deny claims of back doors in hardware supplied to Vodafone.

In a statement to Computing, the company claimed that they were fixed at the time. It added that the flaws were no different to security flaws regularly found in software and hardware across the technology industry.

"We were made aware of historical vulnerabilities in 2011 and 2012 and they were addressed at the time," said Huawei in its statement.

It continued: "Software vulnerabilities are an industry-wide challenge. Like every ICT vendor we have a well-established public notification and patching process, and when a vulnerability is identified we work closely with our partners to take the appropriate corrective action."

It has been suggested that the back door in question in that particular instance was a Telnet-based remote debugging interface.

Delta is a new market intelligence service from Computing to help CIOs and other IT decision makers make smarter purchasing decisions - decisions informed by the knowledge and experience of other CIOs and IT decision makers.

Delta is free from vendor sponsorship or influence of any kind, and is guided by a steering committee of well-known CIOs, such as Charles Ewen, Christina Scott, Steve Capper and Laura Meyer.

Ten crucial technology areas are already covered at launch, with more data appearing and more areas being covered every week. Sign-up here for your free trial of the Computing Delta website.