LONDON: Britain has identified “significant” issues in Huawei’s engineering processes that pose “new risks” for the nation’s telecommunications, a government report found Thursday amid lingering global suspicion over the Chinese technology giant.
“Further significant technical issues have been identified in Huawei’s engineering processes, leading to new risks in the UK telecommunications networks,” read annual findings from the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC) oversight board.
Huawei is the leading manufacturer of equipment for next-generation 5G mobile networks with almost instantaneous data transfer that will become the nervous system of Europe’s economy, in strategic sectors like energy, transport, banking and health care.
However, some Western nations have barred it amid fears Beijing could gain access to sensitive communications and critical infrastructure.
A Huawei spokesman on Thursday told AFP that it was taking the British concerns “very seriously” and they would be used as part of its “ongoing” process to improve its capabilities.
HCSEC stressed that in the report that it “does not believe that the defects identified are a result of Chinese state interference”.
The board added however that “no material progress has been made by Huawei in the remediation of the issues reported last year”.
And it concluded: “Overall, the oversight board can only provide limited assurance that all risks to UK national security from Huawei’s involvement in the UK’s critical networks can be sufficiently mitigated long-term.”
HCSEC was formed in 2010 to mitigate perceived risks arising from the involvement of Huawei in critical national infrastructure.
The government-led board includes officials from Britain’s GCHQ cybersecurity agency as well as a senior Huawei executive and representatives from the UK telecommunications sector.
Thursday’s report “details some concerns about Huawei’s software engineering capabilities”, the Huawei spokesman added.
“We understand these concerns and take them very seriously.- AFP
