14 DAY TRIAL // The United States has been spying on China’s Huawei, a newly released document from Snowden’s stash reveals.
The New York Times and Der Spiegel report that the NSA has been snooping in on Huawei since at least 2009.
Considering that US lawmakers have been considering Huawei a risk to the United States’ national security, the new revelations aren’t that surprising. Huawei, along with ZTE, has been featured in several reports over alleged relationships with the Chinese army, which is why US organizations are afraid that by using Huawei products, they’re open to hacking from China.
This seems to be the concern behind the NSA spying too, especially since the agency seems to be working in tandem with the FBI and the White House.
The file explains the NSA’s purpose in the entire story. Basically, since many of the agency’s targets communicate over Huawei products, they want to make sure they know how to exploit them.
The agency has reportedly managed to get its hands on Huawei’s source code, an essential part of any computer company.
The NSA managed to get access to a lot of this data after infiltrating the company’s central office in Shenzhen, through which Huawei had directed all its mail traffic from employees. Messages from company CEO Ren Zhengfei and Chairwoman Sun Yafang are among those whose conversations were intercepted.
“We currently have good access and so much data that we don’t know what to do with it,” the internal document reads.
The NSA was also able to get access to a series of other type of documents, including Huawei’s customer list which has been kept hidden from the public eye.
The NSA hasn’t exactly denied any of the information, releasing a statement saying that it won’t comment on specific collection activities. However, Caitlin Hayden, NSA spokesperson, has stressed the fact that the agency’s intelligence activities are focused on the national security needs of the United States.
Moreover, the NSA has said that it does not give collected intelligence to US companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line. Basically, the NSA wants us to believe that it does not engage in any type of financial espionage, despite previous proof in this direction.
Huawei has reacted to the information. Bill Plummer, Huawei spokesperson, has said that if this is true, the situation is ironic because what they’re doing to the company is exactly what they’ve always said that the Chinese were doing.
“If such espionage has been truly conducted, then it is known that the company is independent and has no unusual ties to any government and that knowledge should be relayed publicly to put an end to an era of mis- and disinformation,” he concluded.