Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cyberwarfare

EU Should Worry About Huawei, Other Chinese Firms: Official

The European Union and its citizens should be “worried” about telecoms giant Huawei and other Chinese firms that cooperate with Beijing’s intelligence services, a senior EU official warned Friday.

The European Union and its citizens should be “worried” about telecoms giant Huawei and other Chinese firms that cooperate with Beijing’s intelligence services, a senior EU official warned Friday.

European Commission Vice President Andrus Ansip issued the remarks after Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer and daughter of its founder, was arrested a week ago in Canada at Washington’s request.

The White House did not specify why she was detained but mentioned longstanding US concerns over Chinese firms using stolen intellectual property and how Beijing acquires information technology.

“Do we (in Europe) have to be worried about Huawei or other Chinese companies?” Ansip asked during a press conference in Brussels.

“Yes, I think we have to be worried about those companies because they set new rules according with their IT companies, their producers,” Ansip said.

“They have to cooperate with their intelligence services. And this is about mandatory backdoors,” the former prime minister of Estonia added.

He said he has long opposed such backdoors where the firm may use chips to obtain secrets from customers, though he pointed out little was known about concrete cases.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

“It’s not a good sign when companies have to open their systems for some kind of secret services,” he added. “As normal ordinary people of course we have to be afraid.”

Experts in the US see Meng’s arrest last Saturday as a toughening stand in Washington on dealing with Chinese tech firms amid longstanding concerns over cyberespionage.

Recent US federal law already bans military and government use of devices made by Huawei and fellow Chinese firm ZTE over security concerns.

Federal regulators are also in the process of implementing rules that would bar Huawei for rolling out fifth-generation, or 5G, networks in the United States.

Huawei has denied any ties to the Chinese government, but many in Washington are sceptical.

Huawei is meanwhile facing bans for 5G contracts in Australia and New Zealand, and British telecom group BT revealed on Wednesday it was removing Huawei equipment from its core cellular network.

Written By

AFP 2023

Click to comment

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

SecurityWeek’s Threat Detection and Incident Response Summit brings together security practitioners from around the world to share war stories on breaches, APT attacks and threat intelligence.

Register

Securityweek’s CISO Forum will address issues and challenges that are top of mind for today’s security leaders and what the future looks like as chief defenders of the enterprise.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Application Security

Cycode, a startup that provides solutions for protecting software source code, emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday with $4.6 million in seed funding.

Cyberwarfare

WASHINGTON - Cyberattacks are the most serious threat facing the United States, even more so than terrorism, according to American defense experts. Almost half...

CISO Strategy

SecurityWeek spoke with more than 300 cybersecurity experts to see what is bubbling beneath the surface, and examine how those evolving threats will present...

Management & Strategy

SecurityWeek examines how a layoff-induced influx of experienced professionals into the job seeker market is affecting or might affect, the skills gap and recruitment...

Risk Management

The supply chain threat is directly linked to attack surface management, but the supply chain must be known and understood before it can be...

CISO Conversations

In this issue of CISO Conversations we talk to two CISOs about solving the CISO/CIO conflict by combining the roles under one person.

CISO Strategy

Security professionals understand the need for resilience in their company’s security posture, but often fail to build their own psychological resilience to stress.

Mobile & Wireless

Infonetics Research has shared excerpts from its Mobile Device Security Client Software market size and forecasts report, which tracks enterprise and consumer security client...