Germany warns of 5G attacks by ‘nation states’ in veiled criticism of Beijing and Huawei
- Comments are for a European Commission risk assessment evaluation spurred by rising concern about potential 5G data breaches
- European source says Berlin is obviously referring to China and Huawei, given the company is ‘the biggest concern for Europe’
Germany, in what European diplomats on Thursday called veiled criticism of Beijing and Chinese telecoms giant Huawei Technologies, warned of cybersecurity attacks that could be launched by “nation states or nation state-backed actors” on future 5G networks within the European Union.
The German government made those comments in a national risk assessment exercise conducted by the European Commission, spurred by growing public concern over the potential for attacks on networks, devices, programmes and data linked to superfast 5G, or fifth-generation, data transmission.
“It’s obvious the German government is referring to Huawei and China, given that the company is the leading player in 5G and the biggest concern for Europe,” a European diplomatic source told the South China Morning Post.
“It will be interesting to see what other EU member states will say in their submissions.”
The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, is to prepare a coordinated EU-wide evaluation of the potential risks associated with 5G networks by October 3.