Vodafone found hidden backdoors in Huawei hardware

For months, Huawei Technologies Co. has faced U.S. allegations that it flouted sanctions on Iran, attempted to steal trade secrets from a business partner and has threatened to enable Chinese spying through the telecom networks it’s built across the West.

Now Vodafone Group Plc has acknowledged to Bloomberg that it found vulnerabilities going back years with equipment supplied by Shenzhen-based Huawei for the carrier’s Italian business. While Vodafone says the issues were resolved, the revelation may further damage the reputation of a major symbol of China’s global technology prowess.

Europe’s biggest phone company identified hidden backdoors in the software that could have given Huawei unauthorized access to the carrier’s fixed-line network in Italy, a system that provides internet service to millions of homes and businesses, according to Vodafone’s security briefing documents from 2009 and 2011 seen by Bloomberg, as well as people involved in the situation.

Vodafone asked Huawei to remove backdoors in home internet routers in 2011 and received assurances from the supplier that the issues were fixed, but further testing revealed that the security vulnerabilities remained, the documents show. Vodafone also identified backdoors in parts of its fixed-access network known as optical service nodes, which are responsible for transporting internet traffic over optical fibers, and other parts called broadband network gateways, which handle subscriber authentication and access to the internet, the people said. The people asked not to be identified because the matter was confidential.

Vodafone has defended Huawei against the U.S. onslaught, which has placed Europe—Huawei’s largest market outside China—in the middle of a trade battle between two superpowers. At stake is leadership in key areas, principally 5G technology that’s designed to support the internet of things and new applications in industries spanning automotive, energy to healthcare. Vodafone Chief Executive Officer Nick Read has joined peers in publicly opposing any bans on Huawei from 5G rollouts, warning of higher costs and delays. The defiance shows that countries across Europe are willing to risk rankling the U.S. in the name of 5G preparedness.