Thursday 18 July 2013

United Kingdom to probe Huawei staff's role at cybersecurity centre

Updated Thursday, July 18th 2013 at 16:02 GMT +3 The UK government has confirmed it is to review Huawei's involvement in a cybersecurity centre.
The news follows a report by parliament's intelligence committee which raised concerns that staff working at the base in Oxfordshire were employed by the Chinese firm.

Part of their job is to test Huawei's own equipment for vulnerabilities.
US politicians have claimed that the company posed a threat because of links to China's government and military.
The allegations are based, in part, on the fact that the company's founder, Ren Zhengfei, was a former member of the People's Liberation Army.
But Huawei has strongly denied having close ties to the Chinese state and has stressed that it is 98.6%-per-cent-owned by its employees.
Although the firm has been prevented from bidding for many US infrastructure contracts, it has been active in the UK after striking a multi-billion pound deal to provide networking equipment to BT in 2005.
A spokeswoman for Huawei highlighted the fact that the government has said it is confident that UK networks using the firm's equipment "operated to a high standard of security and integrity".
She added that her company supported the decision to carry out a review.
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The UK's Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) raised concerns about the company's involvement in the Cyber Security Evaluations Centre in Banbury, Oxfordshire, last month.
"While we recognise that there are some benefits associated with the current staffing arrangements for the Cell, these do not, in our opinion, outweigh the risks of Huawei effectively policing themselves," its report read.

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