Indian officals allege Huawei has hacked into BSNL mobile base station controller. PHOTO: Reuters
"An incident about the alleged hacking of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) network by M/S Huawei ... has come to notice," Killi Kruparani, junior minister for communications and information technology, said in a written reply to a question from a member of parliament.
"The government has constituted an inter-ministerial committee to investigate the matter," the minister said on Wednesday, without giving details.
A senior government official said the decision to investigate came after a media report said Huawei had hacked a BSNL mobile base station controller. The official declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.
BSNL declined to comment beyond the minister's statement. A spokesperson for the communications and information technology ministry said he did not have details of the allegation.
A spokesperson for Huawei India denied any hacking.
"Huawei India denies such alleged hacking and continues to work closely with customers and governments in India to address any network security issue that may arise in technical and business operations," spokesperosn Suresh Vaidyanathan said in a statement.
Vaidyanathan said Huawei, founded by a former officer of China's People's Liberation Army, fully complied with network security norms and regulations.
The Indian government has launched investigations in the past based on media reports.
Neighbors India and China fought a war more than 50 years ago and have a disagreement over their border. This is not the first time Huawei is facing scrutiny in India.
In 2010, India blocked for several months domestic carriers' imports of Chinese telecoms equipment over suspicions that it might have spying technology embedded to intercept sensitive conversations and government communications.
The unofficial ban was lifted after the Chinese makers, who had said their equipment was safe, agreed to new equipment rules with tougher checks.
The United States has also flagged Chinese telecoms equipment as a potential security risk.
In 2012, a US panel urged American companies to stop doing business with Huawei and ZTE warning that China could use firms' equipment to spy on certain communications and threaten vital systems through computerised links.
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i was going to but huaewei datacard, but now cancelled
@Mohd tarekh. Nice try...:)
@mohd tarekh. look at the level and scale of IT business world does with india and compare that with pakistan, it's an indian CEO running Microsoft, not pakistani, same goes with sections Head of google and many global companies as well as renowned IT indian companies like infosis,tata etc. IT Indians who studied from india are working at large numbers in American companies. We don't need to learn anything from them, we are not lacking in skill or talent but red Tapism, corruption and mismanagement of govt which suffocates the business functioning in bad environment. Improve that bring policy friendly measures,open doors to foreign investment and and we solve 99 percent of problem.
India has atleast 1000 foreign multinational IT companies.....I would like to allow India to allow more IT and Banking companies..but ban chinese companies as they are very technical and are good for pakistan only..pakistanis are world class in IT industry..we Indian have a lot to learn from pakistan.....