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UK Oversight Report Highlights the Power of Collaboration between Industry and Government

[29 March 2019] The 2019 Report from the UK Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC) Oversight Board has been released and highlights how collaboration between the industry and Government can lead to a more secure environment.

As the report says, “The oversight provided for in our mitigation strategy for Huawei's presence in the UK is arguably the toughest and most rigorous in the world.”
“Most importantly for New Zealand, the Report has not raised any concerns of ‘backdoors’, or state-sponsored espionage and specifically said that there is no evidence of Chinese state interference” said Andrew Bowater, Deputy Managing Director of Huawei New Zealand.

The 2019 report however does detail concerns raised in 2018 related to software engineering issues. Huawei understands these concerns and takes them very seriously and in late 2018 Huawei's Global Board of Directors issued a resolution to carry out a companywide transformation programme aimed at enhancing our software engineering capabilities, with an initial budget of US$2bn.

“These software issues are not related to 5G mobile networks or technology and are not connected to any of the concerns raised in New Zealand as they relate to historic network builds in the UK.

“Through HCSEC, Huawei has opened itself up to more scrutiny than any other player in the industry. Every major piece of work Huawei does in New Zealand is subject to rigorous independent evaluation through HCSEC and New Zealanders can take confidence from that openness as it leads to constant improvements and greater security for customers by identifying issues and getting those resolved.

“All networks have potential vulnerabilities and while the Report does highlight issues that Huawei will improve on, it shows the collaborative Evaluation approach works and reinforces the importance of working together to build better and more secure networks. 

“Huawei supports the New Zealand Government undertaking a similarly rigorous collaborative review of any potential provider of network systems.  We propose a balanced framework which would manage potential risks and provides significant oversight while allowing New Zealand to access high quality, cutting  edge technologies” says Bowater.