When I think about the Chinese telecommunication company Huawei, there is only one word that comes into my mind; Bullish. This is one company that has faced insurmountable challenges and when you think it is going to break, it comes over it.
Now, the latest series of challenges to bedevil this company include the anti-Huawei (well, anti-Chinese ICT companies) by the U.S., which was quickly adopted by its allies in Europe. As it is, there is a Federal ban on all government bodies for use of Huawei hardware in their ICT infrastructure.
A section of the U.S. Congress have even cautioned the public from purchasing Huawei devices; that includes smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Ironically, despite these negative campaign, Huawei wrestled Apple from number two global smartphone vendor; Samsung still remains at first position.
Vodafone Group claims Huawei routers have backdoors
The ICT world is moving towards 5G connectivity, and Chinese ICT companies such as Huawei and ZTE are well ahead of the competition. They are, as a matter of fact, the go-to ICT companies if you are looking to install 5G infrastructure.
According to a publication by Bloomberg, Huawei shipped bugged ICT hardware to European markets. The Vodafone Group claims that in 2011, Huawei used a secret backdoor in its hardware to get unauthorized access to the telecom fixed-line network in Italy.
Vodafone also claims it had its technicians take apart the Huawei hardware and they confirmed the existence of backdoor in internet routers sourced from the Chinese company. The telecom apparently approached Huawei over the matter, but time went by and the issue was never fixed.
Huawei denies these allegations
On its part, Huawei downplayed the gravity of the situation by acknowledging that while indeed there was a security concern. It was not so serious to warrant the use of the term ‘secret backdoors’ in its routers.
“Software vulnerability 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,” said a spokesman from Huawei while addressing this matter to ZDNET.