US issues fresh warning on Huawei

The US has delivered a fresh warning that there is no safe level of involvement by Chinese tech giant Huawei in the 5G networks of western powers.

Robert Strayer, the deputy assistant secretary for cyber at the State Department, said any role for the firm in building a nation’s 5G network posed an “unacceptable risk” to security.

His comments came after Prime Minister Theresa May was reported to have given the green light for Huawei to provide “non-core” elements of the UK network, overriding concerns of a number of senior ministers.

Mr Strayer said that allowing an “untrustworthy” operator into even the “edges” of the network created risks of espionage or sabotage.

He said the US would have to reassess its intelligencesharing arrangements with any country which allowed suchafirmtobecomeinvolved in building its network.

“Having potentially compromised equipment and software provided by vendors in any part of that network is an unacceptable risk,” he said.

“It is our position in the United States that there is no way that we can effectively mitigate the risk to having an untrustworthy vendor in the edge of the network.

“We should be concerned about all parts of the 5G network. No part of the 5G network should have parts or software coming from a vendor that could be under the control of an authoritarian government.”

He said the increasing use of software in the new networks for tasks previously carried out by computer hardware increased the “attack area” for attempted interference, while 5G would create “vast” quantities of new data.