Technology firm Huawei is not spying on US interests for China but its products could pose potential security risks. That was the message delivered this week by a White House-ordered review of security risks posed by Chinese companies.
While the probe did not find direct spying by Huawei it did warn that the company’s products were “risky” for “non-espionage” reasons, specifically because of vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit.
The full report comes one week after a U.S. congressional report warned US telecommunications companies of the risks posted by using Huawei and ZTE as part of their supply chains.
The report does not claim that such vulnerabilities were added to Huawei products on purpose.
Rejecting the House Intelligence Committee’s report was Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei who called the report completely inaccurate. According to Huawei U.S spokesman Bill Plummer:
“Huawei is a $32 billion independent multinational that would not jeopardize its success or the integrity of its customers’ networks for any government or third party. Ever.”
In the meantime an independent US researcher who worked on the project says they found various “back doors” that their team believed were deliberately placed and not caused by “sloppy” programming. The independent researcher says the back doors could allow attackers to install malicious software. That malicious code could then be used to make critical government networks inoperable or to gain access to highly classified systems.
Huawei in the meantime makes only a single-digit percentage of its sales in the United States and most of those sales are found in the mobile phone sector.