Far from downplaying potential security threats from wireless equipment, Huawei is highlighting the risks, and demanding that all suppliers are subject to the kind of rigorous checks it faces in countries like the US and India.
While many observers believe those audits and restrictions are motivated as much by commercial defensiveness as national security fears, Huawei Global’s chief information security officer, John Suffolk, says every piece of telecoms equipment could be a potential threat.
Speaking at the Cebit conference in Sydney, as reported by ZDNet Australia, he took a rare point of high ground for Huawei on this issue, and called on rival vendors to take the issue as seriously as his own does ‘ as the existence of his job role is designed to illustrate.
Suffolk pointed out that, regardless of the brand on the box, components could come from many vendors and countries. “Many people who look at any equipment will make an assumption that what’s in that equipment comes from that country. If you open up a Huawei box, what you will see is 70% of the components in that equipment come from non-Huawei, come from outside of Huawei, and come from actually outside of mainland China. The biggest providers of components in Huawei’s equipment are American companies, at 32%.’
Since malware or other threatening code can be inserted at many points in the supply chain, which could pass through five or more countries, the main vendor needs to be accountable for tracing every component and provider. “If you, as a customer, don’t ask a vendor to do anything on security, do not be surprised if that vendor does nothing on security,’ Suffolk summed up, stressing that Huawei has been forced to take these actions already, because of the extent of audits and security reviews it routinely faces when competing for infrastructure deals.
The speech was made in a country which Huawei has placed high on its list of growth targets this year. Australian authorities have expressed some suspicions about Chinese suppliers but Huawei has nevertheless won major contracts there. Its 2012 results were hit by the almost complete bar it now faces on selling equipment to tier one operators in the US, following a damning report by federal security agencies last year, and while it has had an easier time in Europe, it now faces anti-dumping probes as the European Union tries to defend its own industry.