Six US Intelligence Agencies Warn Americans Against Using Huawei Mobiles!

This will go down as the most comprehensive, full-fledged attack against a single mobile phones brand ever.

Directors of 6 US intelligence agencies, which includes the mighty FBI, CIA and NSA have issued warning against using mobile phones from Huawei and ZTE.

Both are Chinese handset companies, and the warning has been issued because these Intelligence Agencies are worried about data leak.

Although this is not the first time that such a warning has been issued, this is for the first time that Directors of all major intelligence agencies have come together for issuing a warning.

US Intelligence Agencies: Don’t Use Huawei Mobiles

The warning was collectively issued by heads of FBI, CIA, NSA, director of national intelligence and other agencies, during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in Washington.

FBI Director Chris Wray said the government was

“deeply concerned about the risks of allowing any company or entity that is beholden to foreign governments that don’t share our values to gain positions of power inside our telecommunications networks.”

He, along with other heads of security agencies said that Huawei phones have “the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information. And it provides the capacity to conduct undetected espionage.”

In their restrained reply to this controversy, Huawei has brushed off any such threat of data leak or espionage.

Huawei said,

“Huawei is aware of a range of U.S. government activities seemingly aimed at inhibiting Huawei’s business in the U.S. market. Huawei is trusted by governments and customers in 170 countries worldwide and poses no greater cybersecurity risk than any ICT vendor, sharing as we do common global supply chains and production capabilities.”

Smartphone Market Dynamics In The USA And Huawei

This is not the first time that US Govt. has issued any sort of warning against Huawei phones.

Just last week, two Republican Senators proposed a legislation, which if passed, will forever block the entry of Huawei phones in the US.

One of the senators actually described Huawei has an extension of Chinese Govt.

Huawei was founded in 1987 by a former engineer in China’s People’s Liberation Army.

Since 2014, US Govt. has banned Huawei from bidding on any US Govt. contracts. Their attempt to enter the US consumer market via a partnership with AT&T was cancelled at the last moment, allegedly due to political pressure.

But despite such warnings, Huawei phones are selling like hot cakes. In 2016, Huawei became the most profitable Android phone maker, beating Samsung; and last year they beat Apple to become World’s 2nd largest phone maker.

Closer home, scrutiny on Huawei’s telecom components has been going on since long, as a probe was underway to determine whether they hacked BSNL’s networks or not.

We will keep you updated, as we receive more inputs.