February 28, 2019
By FRANK BAJAK
Since last year, the U.S. has waged a vigorous diplomatic offensive against the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, claiming that any nation deploying its gear in next-generation wireless networks is giving Beijing a conduit for espionage or worse.
But security experts say the U.S. government is likely exaggerating that threat. Not only is the U.S. case short on specifics, they say, it glosses over the fact that the Chinese don’t need secret access to Huawei routers to infiltrate global networks that already have notoriously poor security.
State-sponsored hackers have shown no preference for one manufacturer’s technology over another, these experts say. Kremlin-backed hackers, for instance, adroitly exploit internet routers and other networking equipment made by companies that are not Russian.
If the Chinese want to disrupt global networks, “they will do so regardless of the type of equipment you are using,” said Jan-Peter Kleinhans, a researcher at the Berlin think tank Neue Verantwortung Stiftung.
One of the most common U.S. fears — that Huawei might install software “backdoors” in its equipment that Chinese intelligence could use to tap into, eavesdrop on or interrupt data transmissions — strikes some experts as highly unlikely.
Priscilla Moriuchi, who retired from the National Security Agency in 2017 after running its Far East operations, does not believe the Huawei threat is overblown. But she called the odds of the company installing backdoors on behalf of Chinese intelligence “almost zero because of the chance that it would be discovered,” thus exposing Huawei’s complicity.