Ethiopia's Broadband Network - A Chinese Trojan Horse?
Horn of Africa
by <
http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/author/gsands/> Gary Sands | on
September 8th, 2013
Ethiopia's signing last month of a $800 million broadband network with
Chinese telecoms giant ZTE has some pundits again focusing on Chinese
economic espionage in Africa. The agreement calls for the establishment of
a 4G broadband network in the capital Addis Ababa and a 3G network
throughout the rest of the country. The project should go quite some way
toward providing Ethiopians with cellphone connectivity, as estimates from
the International Telecommunications Union show that less than one percent
of Ethiopia's 85 million people have access to the internet on mobile phones
and about 23 percent of the population subscribe to mobile phones. The
agreement with ZTE lays in place the final piece of a US$1.6 billion project
split 50/50 with Huawei Technologies, the world's second largest telecoms
equipment maker. Both ZTE and Huawei intend to provide low interest vendor
financing to Ethiopia.
>From the Ethiopian government's perspective, the deal reached with ZTE and
Huawei may look like a gift horse given its low interest financing,
competitive pricing, fully managed systems and the project's potential to
provide low cost connectivity for the Ethiopian people. Yet the announcement
comes on the heels of recent alarmist comments by U.S. officials, who
believe China is developing a dangerous spy network in Africa. Michael
Hayden, a former director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, in an
interview with the Australian Financial Review in July, claimed China was
engaged in unrestricted espionage against the West. Hayden stated "At a
minimum, Huawei would have shared with the Chinese state intimate and
extensive knowledge of the foreign telecommunications systems it is involved
with". Former Department of Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff
further elaborated on the dangers in July's Foreign Policy magazine,
stating, "There's a great deal of concern about Huawei acting to advance the
interests of the Chinese government in a strategic sense, which includes not
only traditional espionage but as a vehicle for economic espionage. If you
build the network on which all the data flows, you're in a perfect position
to populate it with back doors or vulnerabilities that only you know about,
you're upgrading it, each time you upgrade the network or service it, that's
an opportunity".
The accusations surrounding Huawei over cyber security escalated last
November following the actions of intelligence agencies and security
companies tracing web attacks back to China. In the U.S., Huawei's
operations have largely been banned, with both Huawei and ZTE coming under
investigation on concerns surrounding the hacking of U.S. systems and theft
of intellectual property. In 2008, Huawei and partner Bain Capital dropped
their bid for computer-equipment maker 3Com Corporation following security
concerns, and last year Huawei was forced to unwind the purchase of patents
from a U.S. server firm, 3Leaf Systems, after failing to immediately
disclose the deal and due to security concerns. In 2012, the U.S. Commerce
Department, barred Huawei from participating in a nationwide emergency
network, also citing security concerns. Last year, Australia banned the
company from bidding for work on its national broadband fiber network citing
"national interests." And although Huawei has been providing networking
equipment to British Telecom since 2005, the U.K. Cabinet Office announced
in July its intention to review Huawei's Cyber Security Evaluation Centre,
known as the Banbury Cell, over a lack of clarity on links between Huawei
and the Chinese government.
U.S. fears of espionage are partly based on intelligence reports that
routing equipment supplied by Huawei to U.S. customers "acted oddly," and
the potential for routers to turn on in the middle of the night and send
large packets of data to China, a process known as beaconing. Other worries
concerning U.S. lawmakers surround the potential for Chinese hackers to
disguise their attacks by rerouting them through the African continent.
Furthermore, internal Huawei documents obtained by U.S. officials from a
former Huawei employee show the company provides "special network services"
to an entity the former employee believes is a cyber-warfare unit within the
Chinese army. In a report last year, U.S. counterintelligence officials
called China the world's biggest perpetrator of economic espionage, saying
the theft of sensitive data is accelerating and endangering an estimated
$398 billion in U.S. research spending.
Huawei spokesman William Plummer, who is based in Washington, has denied any
accusations of espionage, regarding such concerns as "silliness," and adding
that westerners accusing Huawei of rampant spying "are looking into the
'mirror' of the U.S. PRISM and related programs and assuming like activity
by other states." The U.S. PRISM program is said to have the ability to
monitor an individual's activity on the web in unprecedented detail, both
inside and outside the U.S.
With Huawei continuing to thrive throughout Africa on sales of a low-cost
smart phone supported by low-cost ZTE telecoms infrastructure, African
nations should be wary of the gift horse coming from China. Of course,
China is not the only nation capable of spying through telecoms networks -
"lawful intercept" is common practice - but leaders should choose carefully
when considering potential vendors. One way in which African nations may be
able to mitigate the risk of economic espionage is through independent
audits of technology vendors' hardware and software. Another way may be to
hire independent management to put in place and operate sophisticated
security assurance disciplines, including after-market service. Through
independent management and the use of outside auditors, African nations may
be able to gain some confidence that their foreign-procured devices and
networks are secure and will hopefully avoid receiving the gift of a
potential Trojan horse.
Received on Sun Sep 08 2013 - 18:25:34 EDT