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May 21 – BSNL, the Indian state-owned telecommunication service provider, has been ordered by the government to “thoroughly test” all equipment supplied to it by the Chinese manufacturer Huawei on fears that “backdoor entries” could have been inserted to enable China if needed to disable Indian telecommunications.
Huawei won a US$1.5billion contract to supply BSNL with 25 million lines. The kit must be tested for trapdoors, blackboxes, malware and remote hacking capabilities. BSNL has been restricted from purchasing from Huawei on common political borders it shares with China, with the Huawei kit only to be deployed in the southern Indian states. There are concerns that in politically sensitive areas such as Bangladesh, Burma and Pakistan, Huawei could provide equipment that contains remote diagnostic facilities which could be activated by China at a later stage. Such additions would allow China to conduct surveillance and potentially disable communications networks in India.
Huawei’s contract is for the provision of base stations, mobile switching centers, and microwave equipment, and includes a two year maintenance provision, which is worrying aspects of the Indian Communications Ministry.
