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UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson Sacked over Huawei Leak

bbc.com

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Re: UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson Sacked over Huawei Leak

#31

Post by strainer »

sp332 wrote: post #22
gnode wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is being touted as a smoking gun, calling it a "backdoor" may be reaching: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/30/huawei_enterprise_r...

I think this article is disingenuous. It's telnet on a nonstandard port with hardcoded credentials, that was added back in after being removed when it was spotted in previous security testing. Edit: this according to one of the sources in the Bloomberg article, who claims to have read internal Vodaphone documents https://twitter.com/raistolo/status/1123283199348621312

A telnet service responds to a plain port scan. So it was categorically not hidden. Vodaphone explain this themselves in the linked register article:

>It added the Telnet service was found during an audit, which means it can't have been that secret or hidden: "The issues were identified by independent security testing, initiated by Vodafone as part of our routine security measures, and fixed at the time by Huawei.

Re: UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson Sacked over Huawei Leak

#33

Post by rb808 »

13415 wrote: post #8

In general, this is one of the news threads that I persistently don't understand. There is too much information missing. Why are European countries so keen on allowing Huawei to build some critical infrastructure? Do they face threats from China? If so, how are these made? And then there is the other side of the coin, that the US allegations look credible overall, but it is also known that the NSA and GCHQ built spyi…

If all computers, networking and cell phones come from China, I dont see why local 5G transmitters should be any different. If Europeans save a lot of money choosing Huawei over Qualcomm its a good choice. Its not like Qualcomm is nice to Europeans.

Also Europe is less insular and doesn't have the cold war mentality that our current government seems driven by.

Re: UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson Sacked over Huawei Leak

#35

Post by inflatableDodo »

sp332 wrote: post #22
gnode wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is being touted as a smoking gun, calling it a "backdoor" may be reaching: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/30/huawei_enterprise_r...

I think this article is disingenuous. It's telnet on a nonstandard port with hardcoded credentials, that was added back in after being removed when it was spotted in previous security testing. Edit: this according to one of the sources in the Bloomberg article, who claims to have read internal Vodaphone documents https://twitter.com/raistolo/status/1123283199348621312

>I think this article is disingenuous.

Is 'The Register'. Being disingenuous is their bread and butter when you tune out the comedic writing style. I used to follow their climate change reporting as an interesting counterpoint as they were biased towards trying to disprove it. These days they more or less ignore climate change as a topic compared to five or ten years ago, if you look at frequency of articles.

Re: UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson Sacked over Huawei Leak

#36

Post by KaiserPro »

13415 wrote: post #8

In general, this is one of the news threads that I persistently don't understand. There is too much information missing. Why are European countries so keen on allowing Huawei to build some critical infrastructure? Do they face threats from China? If so, how are these made? And then there is the other side of the coin, that the US allegations look credible overall, but it is also known that the NSA and GCHQ built spyi…

1) there are always holes in network gear. They are either deliberately put in, or in there because network firmware is difficult time short and buggy as hell. or SS7.

2) allowing Huawei to bid brings the price down. There aren't many major players, so a lack of competition means comedy quotes. (https://www.greyb.com/companies-working-on-5g-technology/)

3) france and germany can build them on their own, see above.

I suspect there are some specific flaws that are exploitable, perhaps. But, it depends on where the kit is. If its part of the core routing fabric, then yes, thats possibly a problem. However most networks have total oversight, because thats how GCHQ et al operate. At the very least keep a connetion record of every event that happens on the network

Re: UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson Sacked over Huawei Leak

#37

Post by DelightOne »

strainer wrote: post #31
sp332 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this article is disingenuous. It's telnet on a nonstandard port with hardcoded credentials, that was added back in after being removed when it was spotted in previous security testing. Edit: this according to one of the sources in the Bloomberg article, who claims to have read internal Vodaphone documents https://twitter.com/raistolo/status/1123283199348621312

A telnet service responds to a plain port scan. So it was categorically not hidden. Vodaphone explain this themselves in the linked register article: >It added the Telnet service was found during an audit, which means it can't have been that secret or hidden: "The issues were identified by independent security testing, initiated by Vodafone as part of our routine security measures, and fixed at the time by Huawei.

So a backdoor is okay incase it's not hidden?

Re: UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson Sacked over Huawei Leak

#38

Post by gnode »

sp332 wrote: post #22
gnode wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is being touted as a smoking gun, calling it a "backdoor" may be reaching: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/30/huawei_enterprise_r...

I think this article is disingenuous. It's telnet on a nonstandard port with hardcoded credentials, that was added back in after being removed when it was spotted in previous security testing. Edit: this according to one of the sources in the Bloomberg article, who claims to have read internal Vodaphone documents https://twitter.com/raistolo/status/1123283199348621312

I won't deny it's bad, but it's more of a smoking crater than a smoking gun. A genuine vulnerability existed, and it wasn't swiftly remove (apparently due to it being crucial to their manufacturing operations). Notwithstanding the potential for this to be an underhandedly engineered backdoor, there doesn't seem to be any evidence of it being more than an oversight similar to others common in the industry.

Re: UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson Sacked over Huawei Leak

#40

Post by pkaye »

user5994461 wrote: post #25
13415 wrote: post #8

In general, this is one of the news threads that I persistently don't understand. There is too much information missing. Why are European countries so keen on allowing Huawei to build some critical infrastructure? Do they face threats from China? If so, how are these made? And then there is the other side of the coin, that the US allegations look credible overall, but it is also known that the NSA and GCHQ built spyi…

It's geopolitics. In short, when there is only a choice between US and Chinese manufacturers, whichever doesn't matter because they're both considered equally hostile. Chinese is cheaper though.

There is a third option... the EU countries develop its own technology.
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