Banning Huawei Seen Having Limited Effect on US 5G Security

The 2015 attack aimed at data stored by the Office of Personnel Management and the 2016 denial-of-service attacks against domain name system provider Dyn used U.S. infrastructure, Simpson said. “We should not be lulled into a false sense of security,” he said: “There’s a lot more involved than just addressing the security threat from Huawei.” China’s “real goal” is leading the world on the commercial development of new technologies, “that will drive the large data collections, the advanced algorithms, the artificial intelligence,” he said. The U.S. could be “playing catch-up” for years, he said. The Chinese Embassy and Huawei didn’t comment.

The security of the 5G network is so critical because carriers today are building the networks that could last for decades, into 6G, 7G and other new generations of wireless, Simpson said. The antennas being built close to subscribers could be the same ones used for many years, he said. “It’s very important that we build the physical infrastructure right in a way that’s secure,” Simpson said: “If we don’t, we’ll regret it for decades.”

Peter Atwal with Q Networks, which is working with DOD on its network, said 5G is about connecting devices more than people and “extreme broadband.” The 4G network is insufficient, he said. “You can’t keep putting up macro cells and assume that you’re going to get the benefits that come from fragmenting the cellular network into smaller cells,” he said. “You have to push the antennas and the comput[ing] to the edge. … You have to put the technology right where the action is.”

Fifth-generation brings new vulnerabilities, Atwal warned. “Hackers are in high heaven.” For the first time, telecom networks are going to be at the edge and no longer centralized and that creates challenges, Atwal said. In the past, operators could centralize data and keep it “under lock and key,” Atwal said: “It’s pretty hard to protect stuff that’s in the edge cloud and the central cloud.” Even in 5G, security remains “an afterthought” and attacking a network is easy, he said: “Most of you in this room, I probably could read your devices in an hour.”

Four of the top 10 wireless companies are Chinese, including Huawei, the largest equipment supplier globally, said Hudson Senior Fellow Arthur Herman. “Huawei and China all understand the first mover advantage,” Herman said: “What the U.S. has accomplished with 4G is precisely what China now wants to accomplish with the next generation.” Huawei has signed up more than 90 countries to buy or test Huawei equipment, he said, and many are U.S. allies.

Big questions include whether the U.S. is taking the right approach and there's more government could do, Herman said. “To what degree does the advent of quantum technology, and post-quantum cryptography, offer ways in which we can look to protect the security of data and networks?"

Huawei, meanwhile, filed an economic analysis on the impact of excluding the carrier from the USF (see 1909180031). It's by Charles River Associates economist Debra Aron. “Stigma created by the proposed rule would discourage telecommunications carriers, both large and small, from purchasing equipment manufactured by Huawei beyond those that receive grants from the federal USF,” Huawei said in docket 18-89, posted Tuesday: “Barring Huawei from the U.S. market would harm the U.S. economy by delaying 5G deployment and impeding competition, resulting in both decreased employment and increased costs.”