Vodafone discovered vulnerabilities in Huawei-supplied equipment

Vodafone discovered security vulnerabilities in equipment supplied by Huawei to its Italian business, it emerged on Tuesday.

Europe’s biggest telecoms company found security vulnerabilities in two products supplied to the business in 2011 and 2012. The issues, it told Bloomberg, were resolved quickly.

Vodafone added that it took security “extremely seriously”, noting: “That is why we independently test the equipment we deploy to detect whether any such vulnerabilities exist. If vulnerabilities exists, Vodafone works with that supplier to resolve it quickly.”

China’s Huawei said software vulnerabilities were “an industry-wide challenge” and that it had a “well-established public notification and patching process, and when a vulnerability is identified we work closely with our partners to take the appropriate corrective action,” according to Reuters.

Huawei is the world’s biggest telecoms equipment company, and Europe is its largest market outside of China. But some governments believe its technology could be used by Beijing for espionage. The US, which is locked in a bitter trade dispute with China, has banned the use of its equipment and wants other Western allies to do the same.

The UK has stopped short of an outright ban, but has said Huawei equipment should not be used in core parts of the country's 5G network.

Huawei strongly refutes all the allegations against it.