VANCOUVER—Experts are warning Canada that working with Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei is a grave “mistake” after an explosive Australian report last week alleged the company had hacked a foreign network and shared the information with Beijing.

The Chinese multinational is currently in partnership with Canadian universities across the country as well as companies such as Telus, with whom it is developing 5G networks in Canada.

According to The Weekend Australian, secret intelligence reports show Huawei officials were pressured at some point in the past two years to provide password and network details to infiltrate a foreign system. It is unclear where the pressure came from.

But several allied countries have voiced concerns about the company being a high-risk security threat.

“While the insights of our allies can’t be shared for national security reasons, the Canadian government and Canadians alike should be legitimately mindful of the warnings issued by the Australian and American government,” Christopher Parsons, a cybersecurity expert with Citizen Lab in the Munk School at the University of Toronto, told StarMetro.

“Taking their counsel very seriously is an appropriate decision.”

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And given Huawei’s extensive partnerships with Canadian institutions to develop 5G infrastructure — from millions of dollars of research grants at major universities often with rights to intellectual property to agreements with large national telecommunications companies — Parsons said there are “very good” reasons for those concerns.

The company has the advantage of selling their products at a “reduced rate” compared to Western competitors, he added.

“That has meant that in a time of budget cuts and crises, Huawei is a more cost-effective solution to achieve similar technological objectives with reduced budgets,” Parsons explained.

StarMetro reached out to Huawei five times for comment but received no response. On Nov. 5, a tech publication reported that Huawei “categorically” denied it has ever provided, or been asked to provide, customer information for any government or organization.

Canadian government officials, the University of British Columbia and Telus also did not respond to StarMetro’s questions about their arrangements with Huawei on 5G research and development.

Meanwhile, both the United States and Australia have banned the company from participating in the construction of the 5G network because of security concerns, and Washington has been increasing pressure on Canada, Britain and New Zealand to join suit.

In fact, in a bipartisan letter addressed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dated Oct. 12, Democrat Sen. Mark R. Warner and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio urged Canada to reconsider Huawei’s inclusion in any aspect of Canada’s 5G development and maintenance.

Intelligence co-operation between the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand and Canada is often referred to as the “Five Eyes.”

The letter included the warnings of three former Canadian national security officials earlier this year, including the former head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The agency published a report in May 2018 outlining China and “the age of strategic rivalry.”

Some of the first field tests with 5G technology took place in Vancouver in a partnership between Telus Corp. and Huawei. The Chinese firm has committed $600 million (U.S). in research and development for 5G technologies since 2009, according to its website.

In 2015, Huawei signed a memorandum of understanding with Telus to establish a 5G Living Lab. The announcement was made when former B.C. premier Christy Clark visited Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen, a release noted.

And this new tech has the potential — depending on how the regulatory framework unfolds — to be “truly transformative,” offering increased efficiency and potential life-saving implications in fields such as health care, Parsons said.

That’s because networks and devices on 5G will have massive connectivity thereby meaning the telecommunications will play a major role in how the future world will work. Parsons said there will be new services that we cannot yet foresee.

“There’s some concerns that equipment could be used to disclose information back to Chinese state intelligence,” he said. “Or could be used in a way to deteriorate infrastructure quality at different times.”

For instance, as entire electrical grids or oil pipelines enter the 5G network — where each piece can communicate and share data analytics — malicious actors could delay or tamper with a signal.

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StarMetro reached out to Telus multiple times for comment via phone leaving voice mails and texts, as well as emails but received no response.

But at an international 5G conference held in Vancouver on Wednesday — which listed Huawei, Telus, Rogers and Bell as sponsors — one Telus employee acknowledged there were security risks with the 5G network but refused to identify specific company names.

“There are some concerns around who is in the space and how they are handling it,” Ryan Walker, Calgary-based director of innovation and strategic partners, told StarMetro. “We’ve got a very regulated environment that’s been called through from the Canadian government.”

Walker insisted the company is “tackling it head-on” and that privacy and security concerns are of utmost concern.

StarMetro requested interviews with the public safety ministry and was referred to the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CSE), which was established on Oct. 1. They offered an emailed statement with an attached cybersecurity fact sheet, which noted a review is in place for emerging 5G technology.

Scott Jones, the head of CSE, was a guest speaker at the conference on Wednesday, where he insisted that collaboration will be essential in the rollout of 5G.

“This is where I believe where your reputation and our critical infrastructure is going to depend on us working together as vendors, operators and governments to design and build cyber resilient infrastructures,” he said at the panel. “We want to make it very expensive to attack us.”

But the real challenge of the future will be ensuring the integrity of networks are maintained “no matter what,” he said.

Each day the government of Canada defends one billion attempts to scan vulnerabilities in their systems, 25 million direct attempts to install malicious software and more than 90,000 attempts to access and manipulate data, Jones said.

Many operators are under pressure to lower costs to consumers, he added.

Since Huawei is able to produce equipment at a cheaper cost than competitors, there’s a suspicion on the part of intelligence agencies that they can “underbid” competitors because their product is subsidized by the Chinese state, said Charles Burton, a political scientist at the University of Ottawa.

“According to Chinese law, citizens of the People’s Republic of China who are working in sensitive areas are obligated to respond to the requests from government to provide information that will be of use to the Chinese state,” Burton explained, noting the company is referred to as a “national champion” firm.

“The subsidies to Huawei are in fact paid back by Huawei providing an all-of-government approach to the installation of this equipment, where it will allow the state to gather extensive amounts of data, which they can gain information that is of use to China’s modernization and military purposes.”

North American telecommunications are already heavily integrated, Burton said, which means if some aspect of the Canadian system were using Huawei equipment, it could be used as a “back door” to get to U.S. technologies, including the military, through covert means.

Burton said the Canadian intelligence community is “sufficiently” worried, to the point where they are prepared to speak publicly.

“There’s considerable concern among security and intelligence professionals that it would be a great mistake for Canada to have Huawei 5G technology in our telecommunications,” he said.

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