After recently discovering that its computer systems contained several Chinese-made network switches, a major US nuclear weapons lab has replaced at least two components because of national security concerns.
According to a document acquired by Reuters:
A letter from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, dated November 5, 2012, states that the research facility had installed devices made by H3C Technologies Co, based in Hangzhou, China. H3C began as a joint venture between China’s Huawei Technologies Co and 3Com Corp, a U.S. tech firm, and was once called Huawei-3Com. Hewlett Packard Co acquired the firm in 2010.
The US government has previously expressed concerns about Huawei and any potential ties to the Chinese military and government, although the company denies that the Chinese military holds any influence over its business and the security of its products.
The devices under particular concern are the switches the lab uses to manage data traffic over their network. Although, it remains unclear how many of the switches were made by Huawei, how they were acquired, and whether or not they were even placed in systems carrying information sensitive enough to pose a security risk.
In October, the House Intelligence Committee issued an investigative report on Huawei and ZTE, claiming they “cannot be trusted to be free of foreign state influence” and pose “a security threat to the United States and to our systems”.
Sounds like somebody’s not going to be excited about that 6.1-inch phablet.[Reuters]