Huawei fights back over Australia ban

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

Advertisement

This was published 11 years ago

Huawei fights back over Australia ban

By Paul Osborne and Max Blenkin

Huawei has denied handing over client information and data to the Chinese government, as authorities revealed serious cyber attacks in Australia have risen more than 50 per cent over the past year.

The world's largest telecommunications equipment maker, founded by a former Chinese People's Liberation Army engineer, has been banned from taking part in the $37 billion national broadband network (NBN) after Australian spy agencies raised security concerns.

The Canadian government has also invoked a "national security exception" against Huawei and a powerful US House of Representatives committee has urged American companies to avoid dealing with Chinese technology vendors.

Huawei Australia chairman John Lord told the National Press Club on Wednesday the security concerns were unfounded and the company had been caught in a "trade conflict" between the US and China.

"The US committee report must be called for what it really is: protectionism, not security," Mr Lord said.

He gave an unequivocal guarantee the Chinese arm of the company had "not handed over any information" on its employees, clients or data to the Chinese government.

"Huawei would never allow any third party, be it a country or individual or anyone else, to interfere with our equipment for an illegal purpose," Mr Lord said.

"Good cyber security is good business."

Mr Lord said industry and government needed to work closer and the company wanted to set up a national centre to test the cyber security of new technologies, as it did in the UK two years ago.

The proposed centre could be funded by vendors and operated by security-cleared Australians.

Advertisement

"Huawei is willing to offer complete and unrestricted access to our software source code and equipment," the retired Australian navy rear admiral said, asking other vendors to do the same.

He said that in the long term there should be an internationally agreed standard for cyber security.

While the company was disappointed in the NBN decision, Mr Lord said it was expanding in Australia and globally had 140,000 staff in 140 countries.

Huawei has been working on improving its image by lobbying MPs, government and shadow ministers and sponsoring the Canberra Raiders NRL team.

It has also put former foreign minister Alexander Downer and former Victorian premier John Brumby on its board.

The company was considering listing on the Australian stock exchange but such a step would take a back seat to improving the existing employee share program, Mr Lord said.

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Stephen Smith told a conference the government's Cyber Security Operations Centre had identified more than 1250 incidents so far this year, of which 470 were serious enough to warrant a response.

Mr Smith told the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) conference that threats are coming from foreign and domestic sources, including organised crime syndicates and nation states.

"Australia is experiencing increasingly sophisticated attempts to infiltrate networks in both the public and private domain," Mr Smith said.

More than 65 per cent of the intrusions were economically motivated.

Australia is working with the UK and US on an international agreement on the "rules of the road" for cyberspace.

DSD has released a new video warning of the perils of cyber attack and measures to stop criminals and hackers.

Most Viewed in National

Loading