Does Huawei Have Security Issues?

Recently, I was reading James Bradshaw's new book: Crucial Company: The Rise of China and the United States as a Competitive Power. In this book, he makes a number of very astute comments regarding U.S. intelligence operations. In one section, he referred to the fact, "The People's Republic of China [is] pursuing what amounts to an international espionage offensive against the United States of America." He went on to say; "The Chinese leadership realizes that they cannot afford to antagonize the U.S. by publicly stating that the U.S. is committing 'unacceptable actions' in its diplomatic moves toward negotiations over its nuclear weapon program. They will react with covert agents if the U.S. decides to go that route."

Does Huawei has security issues? It appears to me that some of the networks attached to U.S. companies such as SAP are under some type of attack by Chinese hackers. Not only does the hacking appear to come from China, but it appears to be quite sophisticated. What's more, there are indications that Chinese hackers are using those tools for propaganda in order to sway U.S. public opinion. Is Huawei a threat?

Some people might say that it's all a big joke. However, I would tend to disagree. I live in the United States now, and I worry about our national security. I don't particularly like Chinese control of key US installations around the world, especially in cyberspace. I also worry about their behavior in terms of stealing intellectual property and trade secrets. All of these things have had direct effect on American defense capabilities and readiness.

I'd love to see the Chinese turn around on their efforts to hack into U.S. computer systems. That would not only be in the interest of our nation, but it would also serve our own security interests in protecting our nation from infiltration and attacks from hostile nation states. It's not hard to see why we want to protect our networks. And it's not hard to see why we want to protect against foreign penetration of those networks.

So, you might wonder: Does Huawei has any security issues? The answer is no, but that question begs several other ones. The company has been growing quickly, but it's not a growth that comes without challenges.

One of those challenges has been trying to find a way to balance the company's fast growth with the need for security. At the same time, it's also been a challenge for the IT leadership at the company to continue to keep the company as secure as possible. It's also a challenge for other network administrators to figure out what the company's goals are in the face of increasing threats. In short, this can be a real problem.

When the company is growing rapidly, as it has been, it sometimes causes an overflow of personnel who are simply trying to deal with the growth and not necessarily the day-to-day issues of maintaining the company's security. This is why it's so important to have a good, solid management team in place. They need to have the time to address the bigger picture. They also need to have the resources to make sure that those issues don't become crises. Having a management team that doesn't have a good understanding of the technology - particularly if they are new to the business - is not going to help.

With that said, however, there is no real reason for concern when it comes to Huawei products. The company continues to aggressively increase its number of employees and has done so successfully. It's also building more strategic partnerships around the world. While it may be early days yet for some of those partnerships to pay off, there is no doubt that the company is on the right path to becoming one of the leading businesses in information security.