Did Huawei have 'Hidden Back Doors' or is it political motivation? Yair Cohen speaks on RT

Apparently, some 'anonymous sources' contacted Bloomberg, an American media company, to tell them that Vodafone Italy discovered 'hidden back doors' in their routers that were made by the Chinese company Huawei. 

These hidden back doors were created so that the Chinese government can have unauthorised access and be able to spy on Vodafone's home and business networks in Italy.

On further investigation, Vodafone has admitted vulnerabilities, which were diagnosed in 2009 and were resolved in 2011 and 2012, which involved removing a diagnostic function. The ‘back door’ that Bloomberg have referred to is Telnet. This is a protocol that is commonly used by many vendors in the industry for performing diagnostic functions. It would not have been accessible from the internet and so to state that this would have given Huawei access to Vodafone’s fixed line network in Italy is not true. 

A backdoor, in cybersecurity terms, is a method of bypassing security controls to access a computer system or encrypted data. It is an important part of technological equipment to allow fixing and servicing. 

Bloomberg say that this further damages the reputation of Huawei, which is already facing a ream of accusations from the US over the ties to the Chinese Government and allegations of spying. Huawei repeatedly denies creating backdoors in order to allow for Government spying and says it’s not beholden to Beijing. 

However, journalists from the American media company – Bloomberg, said that they saw confidential security reports with their own eyes and it tells a different story.

The US launched investigations about trading with China in 2017 and it imposed tariffs on billions of dollars worth of Chinese products last year and Beijing retaliated in kind. The US and China have been locked in an escalating trade battle since 2017 and the US has been moving to ban the use of Huawei’s equipment and is lobbying its allies to do the same.

Can it be a coincidence that suddenly, this allegation is being made about Huawei having access to Vodafone’s client’s networks, when there hasn’t been any evidence of unauthorised access?. 

Yair Cohen - Social Media Lawyer and MD of Cohen Davis was interviewed on RT about this possible breach of privacy issue.