China's telecommunications giant Huawei denounces US spying activities
Iran Press TV
Sun Mar 23, 2014 4:20PM GMT
China's telecommunications giant Huawei has denounced US National Security Agency (NSA) infiltration and spying on its corporate network.
"If the actions in the report are true, Huawei condemns such activities that invaded and infiltrated into our internal corporate network and monitored our communications," Huawei vice president and head of international media affairs, Scott Sykes, said in a statement.
"Huawei disagrees with all activities that threaten the security of networks and is willing to work with all governments, industry stakeholders and customers, in an open and transparent manner, to jointly address the global challenge of network security," Sykes said.
German magazine, Der Spiegel, revealed on Saturday that the NSA spied on Chinese government officials and telecommunications firm Huawei.
According to documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that have been viewed by Der Spiegel, former Chinese president Hu Jintao, China's foreign and trade ministries as well as banks and telecommunications companies were among those targeted.
"At the beginning of 2009, the NSA began an extensive operation, referred to internally as 'Shotgiant,' against the company, which is considered a major competitor to US-based Cisco", the German magazine reported.
"The company produces smartphones and tablets, but also mobile phone infrastructure, WLAN routers and fiber optic cable -- the kind of technology that is decisive in the NSA's battle for data supremacy."
Der Spiegel says "A special unit with the US intelligence agency succeeded in infiltrating Huwaei's network and copied a list of 1,400 customers as well as internal documents providing training to engineers on the use of Huwaei products, among other things."
According to the report, NSA not only managed to access the email archive, but also the secret source code of individual Huwaei products.
According to an NSA document, the spy agency targeted Huawei because "many of our targets communicate over Huawei produced products, we want to make sure that we know how to exploit these products."
Another reason cited by the NSA was that "Huawei's widespread infrastructure will provide the PRC (People's Republic of China) with SIGINT capabilities." SIGINT is agency jargon for signals intelligence.
The operation was conducted with the involvement of the White House intelligence coordinator and the FBI. One document states that the threat posed by Huawei is "unique".
Huawei criticized the NSA spying operation saying that "If it is true, the irony is that exactly what they are doing to us is what they have always charged that the Chinese are doing through us."
The US has repeatedly accused China's government and military of conducting cyber espionage operations targeting US government computers.
In May 2013, the Pentagon for the first time directly accused the Chinese government of collecting intelligence on US diplomatic, economic and defense sectors. China refused the accusation as "groundless".
DDB/DDB
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