The Chinese telecommunications giant, Huawei, has taken centre stage in recent times as the world runs towards the shiny new technology of 5G, however, nations across the world are losing faith due to security threats.
Huawei has faced a fair amount of heat over incidents involving information breaches, data leaks, compromised software, backdoor entries, and funnelling of data to unknown locations- all of which make the wariness surrounding Huawei and other Chinese firms relevant, reported The HK Post.
Australia was the first country in the world to have banned Huawei in its endeavour to establish the 5G network, citing ‘security concerns’ in 2018.
Years later, these ‘security concerns’ were substantiated in the 2012 information breach, which was very visibly traced back to the Huawei equipment that Australia used.
Using sophisticated self-deleting, malicious software embedded in an update, the code reprogrammed all Huawei equipment present in the networks to record and reroute all information passing through it, to China.
When Canberra shared this data leak with its American counterparts in Washington, it was found that a similar breach had occurred that year with Huawei equipment set up in the US as well, reported The HK Post.
In another incident of data rerouting and theft at the hands of Huawei, the African Union’s headquarters was found to be compromised.
Widely reported in 2018, authorities found that for 5 long years, from 2012 through 2017, the Addis Ababa headquarters of the AU had been victim to their information being funnelled to servers in Hong Kong and Shanghai- unsurprisingly, the headquarters itself, as well as the technological equipment, was financed and backed by the Chinese government.
It has, hence, become imperative for nations who collaborate with China to remain aware that with each “good deed” the country offers, there’s always more to the situation than what meets the eye, advised The HK Post.
With Huawei’s predominance in developing and facilitating 5G networks, China stands to gain access to any and all information it wishes to acquire from any network or nation of its choosing. Huawei has a long history of providing flimsy security for its consumer nations, with a common theme of security breaches, data funnelling to unauthorized locations and backdoor entries into software and equipment.
Having set up 5G for over 50 countries, the threat of Huawei isn’t just restricted to the host nations but easily extends out to whichever other countries are connected to it. The presence of Huawei equipment in a country’s network is one of the biggest threats to the mutual exchange of confidential information between nations, for fear of data stealing by the uninvited third-party, China.
Furthermore, involving Chinese equipment in a network could also result in arbitrary surveillance and censorship, as certain parts of a network have the ability to filter and manipulate data after accessing it- this is already actively occurring across the African continent in countries that use Huawei equipment, reported The HK Post.
All the security incidents over the years are a testament to the fact that the Huawei business acts as an extension of China’s arm of intelligence-gathering and surveillance mechanism, be it voluntarily or involuntarily.