World

NSA Spied On Chinese Telecom Giant Huawei, Says Report

New information published in The New York Times and Der Spiegel reveals the NSA's targeting of Huawei in order to monitor Chinese targets.

NSA Spied On Chinese Telecom Giant Huawei, Says Report
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Even more new reports from the Edward Snowden documents suggest the NSA hacked into Chinese telecom firm Huawei.

Reports published Saturday by both The New York Times and Germany's Der Spiegel claim the NSA created "back doors" into Huawei's servers to gather information sent over the company's networks. An internal NSA document about the operation, codenamed "Shotgiant", notes "many of our targets communicate over Huawei produced products, [so] we want to make sure that we know how to exploit these products."

Huawei was founded in 1987 by former Chinese military officer Ren Zhengfei, and it's one of the world's largest telecommunications and networking companies, commanding over 20 percent of the worldwide telecom market.

Gizmodo notes the firm has been virtually shut out of the U.S. market over national security concerns. Last year Zhengfei announced his company would no longer be doing business in the U.S. after it was accused of cyberspying.

In fact, one of the NSA's objectives in monitoring Huawei was to determine if the company had any links to China's military. A Huawei representative told the Times"The irony is that exactly what they are doing to us is what they have always charged that the Chinese are doing through us."

Cyber warfare has dogged U.S.-China relations for many years now — last year President Obama confronted Chinese President Xi Jinping about allegations of Chinese hacking attempts. (Via Euronews)

An NSA spokeswoman declined to comment on Saturday's disclosures but said the agency only focuses on national security interests.