Nokia disavows CTO’s Huawei statements

Marcus Weldon said Huawei was guilty of “sloppiness” and “obfuscation”

Nokia has released a statement disavowing comments made by its CTO Marcus Weldon regarding the safety of Huawei equipment.

In an interview with the BBC, Weldon called the US’ pressure on the Chinese vendor “fairness returning to the market”.

“We were disadvantaged in the past relative to the practices that the Chinese were allowed to have in terms of funding mechanisms,” he said.

Weldon also cited a report from security firm Finite State that showed vulnerabilities in Huawei equipment.

“We read those reports and we think OK, we’re doing a much better job than they are,” he said.

“Some of it seems to be just sloppiness, honestly, that they haven’t patched things, they haven’t upgraded. But some of it is real obfuscation, where they make it look like they have the secure version when they don’t.”

Today (July 28), Nokia released a statement which reads:

“Nokia notes the comments made by a Nokia executive to the BBC on June 27 2019 regarding the possible impact of the use of a competitor’s products on the security of UK telecom networks. These comments do not reflect the official position of Nokia. Nokia is focused on the integrity of its own products and services and does not have its own assessment of any potential vulnerabilities associated with its competitors.”

Huawei also responded through a spokesman, who said: “These comments are misleading. We believe secure, resilient networks can only be delivered by collaboration across the whole industry, working to common standards on privacy protection and cyber-security, so that all participants can be judged equally.

“We have a proven track record of delivering secure, trustworthy and high quality products to every major telecoms operator in Europe. Cyber-security remains Huawei’s top priority and here, in the UK, we are subject to the most rigorous oversight compared to any competitors in our sector.”