A man walks by a Huawei logo at a shopping mall in Shanghai, China December 6, 2018. Stories today claim Vodaphone Italy found a security risk in Huawei equipment but this has since been denied by Vodaphone (Aly Song/REUTERS)

Cybersecurity: Huawei – backdoor or no backdoor?

Several news agencies today are reporting on a Bloomberg news story about cybersecurity issues from co-called “backdoors” found in  Huawwei equipment used by Vodaphone in Italy.

The report says the backdoors were discovered between 2009 and 2011 in home routers and in some equipment used in the network.

Qouted in Forbes, Vodaphone apparently found, “hidden backdoors in the software that could have given Huawei unauthorized access to the carrier’s fixed-line network in Italy, a system that provides internet service to millions of homes and businesses.”

This comes as questions about the security of Huawei equipment and its inclusion in developing the next generation of 5G networks are being raised by the U.S and other governments.

No security threat after all

However, shortly after these various news stories were published, the BBC reports that Vodaphone Italy has said the Bloomberg report is incorrect, and that there was no evidence of unauthorized access to data or other information The BBC story says that according to the new statement the issues were discovered by independent security testing at Vodaphones request and have been addressed by Huawei.

In January, a Reuters report said Vodaphone Italy was pausing installing Huawei equipment in its core networks until the security conerns were properly determined or discounted by other governments.

The U.S, Australia, Japan and Taiwan have already banned Huawei equipment from development of a future 5G network, Canada is assessing its position.

Additional information-sources

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