Vodafone found security flaws in Huawei equipment

MulvaneyTelecoms group Vodafone found security flaws in equipment supplied by China’s Huawei to its Italian business in 2011 and 2012, the two companies said yesterday. Vodafone, the world’s second-biggest mobile operator, said it had found security vulnerabilities in two products and that both incidents, first reported by Bloomberg, had been resolved quickly.

Huawei, the world’s biggest producer of telecoms equipment, is under intense scrutiny after the United States told allies not to use its technology because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has denied such accusations.

Vodafone paused the deployment of Huawei equipment in its core networks in January as the British group waits for Western governments to give the Chinese company full security clearance.

Last week Britain sought to navigate its way through the bitter dispute and two security sources told Reuters that it had decided to block Huawei from all core parts of its 5G network and restrict access to non-core parts.