Lenovo And Huawei Accused Of Spying For China….. Is This China Bashing?
If you ask me what PC laptop to buy for business, my answer is usually Lenovo. The used to be the old laptop division of IBM and they make quality stuff. But that may not matter any longer as the news is out that the governments of Australia, the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand among others have started to ban Lenovo hardware from secure networks due to the fact that they fear that the Chinese owned company has back doors that can threaten their security. Now this isn’t new as another Chinese firm has the same issue. Huawei not only makes mobile phones, but it makes switching gear for mobile phone carriers. Thus it’s been accused of the same thing by Michael Hayden, the former head of the CIA. A claim the company denies.
So. Here’s the $64 question. Are these fears justified or is this some sort of paranoia of the Chinese. Now I don’t claim to know all the answers, but I would say two things. First, the people who are making these claims need to show proof that these companies are conduits for Chinese spying. If they can’t prove it, then they need to put their accusations in the bin and not raise them again. Second, if you put a piece of hardware on your business network, you should evaluate if it could potentially pose a threat to your company. If you think it does, keep it off your network. And I would say that this would be true if the hardware came from anyone and not just these two companies. Because anything could be a threat. It doesn’t have to come from a specific place.
What do you think? Are people over-reacting or is there a legitimate concern here? Post a comment and share your thoughts.
January 10, 2018 at 8:24 am
[…] involved in something like this as accusations of spying for China have been in the air for years. Take this example from 2013. But because of these latest accusations, Huawei has gone to selling their phones “only […]