Huawei Technologies is facing yet another controversy, this time after security documents from Europe’s Vodafone noted that the Chinese firm supplied the carrier with hardware laden with security issues.
Vodafone said it found backdoors in the software contained in Huawei home routers and optical service nodes. Such backdoors could allow Huawei to gain access to Vodafone’s fixed-line network in Italy, reported Bloomberg. This was revealed in Vodafone security documents, seen by Bloomberg, dating from 2009 to 2011.
According to the documents, Vodafone asked Huawei to remove the backdoors in 2011 and was assured this was done, but further research found the security issues remained in place.
Huawei has been involved in a years-long running battle with the U.S. government, which has banned the company’s products, indicted the company’s CFO and founder’s daughter Meng Wanzhou, and asked allies to also ban Huawei devices over cybersecurity concerns. Most recently, Microsoft researchers find an NSA-style backdoor in Huawei laptops.
