Huawei challenges competitors to subject themselves to same regulatory scrutiny, allow source code testing

Telecommunications equipment vendor Huawei Technologies, which says it has boosted investment in product security amid questions raised by some Western nations about its ownership and possible connections to the Chinese state, has called on global peers to follow suit by stepping up their transparency on national security issues.

Huawei is the only major telecoms equipment vendor that not only ensures the safety and credibility of its products, but also allows a British watchdog to review and test source codes to ensure safety, Guo Ping, Huawei’s rotating chairman, said during the company’s annual results conference in Shenzhen yesterday.

“We’ve raised the bar in the industry to ensure not only the products tested during delivery are safe, but our entire development processes are also credible,” he said. “That’s why we opened our source codes for testing ... I believe that through this practice we are setting an example for the whole industry, hoping other vendors will keep up with us and do not lag behind.”

Guo’s remarks came after the fifth annual report from the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC) Oversight Board, a body set up to monitor products supplied by the Shenzhen-based firm to British carriers. It said that “further significant technical issues have been identified in Huawei’s engineering processes”, which could lead to new risks in the country’s telecoms networks.

The oversight board provides only limited assurances that long-term security risks can be managed in Huawei’s equipment in Britain, the report said.  

But Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre, which leads the HCSEC oversight board, said it does not believe that the defects identified are a result of Chinese state interference.

“As we are a Chinese company, we chose to set up a benchmark in the industry by working with British regulators to conduct the most rigorous and toughest tests for our products, to make sure the results and process of our products are safe,” said Guo, responding to the HCSEC findings. He added that Huawei has approved a US$2 billion budget to enhance its software capabilities.

Huawei's network security record has been the best in the industry over the past 30 years, Guo said. He called on his peers to lift the security standards of their telecoms products to deliver an overall improvement in security for the entire industry. “Pressure from the outside has stimulated Huawei to perform an even better job than before,” he said.

The world’s largest telecoms equipment supplier yesterday reported a 19.5 per cent jump in 2018 revenue to 721.2 billion yuan (HK842.9 billion), capping a year in which it came under siege as the US sought to block use of the company’s 5G gear in mobile networks around the world.

Huawei’s consumer business group became the biggest contributor to the firm’s record-high revenue for the first time last year, reflecting the gains that Chinese smartphone brands have made both at home and abroad amid flat sales in the network equipment business.