[kictanet] African Union accuses China of hacking its HQ

Tue Jan 30 10:45:32 EAT 2018

Ali

Yes, we’re caught in the middle of geopolitics unfortunately; nothing based on evidence, technology or reason – just politics at national and international levels.

I will add though that our competitors in telco network infrastructure enjoy nice margins in the US due to the lack of competition from Chinese companies, and though I was not in Africa a decade or two ago, I’m told that the entry and competition of us and other Chinese companies totally upended the high price and low innovation that incumbents had. In general competitiveness should lead to better quality, better services and better prices for various customers, and thus it should be encouraged.

Adam

Senior Director, Public Affairs
Huawei Southern Africa
Mobile: +254-7909-85886

From: Ali Hussein [mailto:ali at hussein.me.ke]
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2018 10:02 AM
To: Adam Lane <adam.lane at huawei.com>
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Subject: Re: [kictanet] African Union accuses China of hacking its HQ

Adam

I appreciate you coming back with a strong defence of the Huawei Brand. Most of us will find it difficult to believe that the Chinese Government wouldn't interfere if they wanted to.

However, there's another aspect of this that we need to consider. Business/Country rivalry. There's a lot of sour grapes when it comes to Chinese Companies and their counterparts in the West. There is an element of both here. Check out these stories regarding Huawei's woes in the US.

1. Lawmakers said to be behind Huawei's continued woes in the US<https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/16/lawmakers-said-to-be-behind-huaweis-continued-u-s-carrier-woes/>
2. AT&T is said to back out of Huawei distribution deal in the US<https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/09/huaweis-u-s-distribution-plans-are-thwarted-again-as-att-reportedly-backs-out-of-a-deal/>

There is probably more than meets the eye here.

Regards

Ali Hussein

Principal

Hussein & Associates

Tel: +254 713 601113

Twitter: @AliHKassim

Skype: abu-jomo

LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim

13th Floor , Delta Towers, Oracle Wing,

Chiromo Road, Westlands,

Nairobi, Kenya.

Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the organizations that I work with.

On Tue, Jan 30, 2018 at 9:18 AM, Adam Lane <adam.lane at huawei.com<mailto:adam.lane at huawei.com>> wrote:
Ali

Let me just respond by saying that Huawei specifically has never and will never be involved in anything like this.

How can you be confident of this? 2/3rds of our sales worldwide are outside of China and believe me, if we ever did anything like this then all our sales to Telcos and Governments (including in Kenya) would suffer. There is no incentive for us to do anything that would compromise our networks. All our telco, government, and other business networks require this of us as of any other vendors, and inspect the equipment closely—since any problem on their network would affect their business/customers as well.

I do not know why the journalist links this story with our work building networks in Africa or anything in the US.

We are proud of the fantastic contribution we have made to building fiber, wireless, backhaul and submarine networks across the entire world including much of Africa – this has brought great benefits to African governments as well as African citizens.

I may also note that there no-one has ever found any evidence of us doing anything wrong in the US, despite spending more than 6 years looking. Meanwhile Snowden revealed the US government tried to hack our equipment in order to access the data of other countries!

We are a 100% employee-owned company without any influence from any government and we take cyber security and data privacy very seriously with a great deal of information available on this through the four white papers we have published here: http://www.huawei.com/en/cyber-security. I will be happy to talk to anyone further about this.

Regards
Adam

Senior Director, Public Affairs
Huawei Southern Africa
Mobile: +254-7909-85886

From: kictanet [mailto:kictanet-bounces+adam.lane<mailto:kictanet-bounces%2Badam.lane>=huawei.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:huawei.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke>] On Behalf Of Ali Hussein via kictanet
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2018 3:17 AM
To: Adam Lane <adam.lane at huawei.com<mailto:adam.lane at huawei.com>>
Cc: Ali Hussein <ali at hussein.me.ke<mailto:ali at hussein.me.ke>>
Subject: [kictanet] African Union accuses China of hacking its HQ

Listers

Something most of us suspected is happening seems to be happening at the Apex of African Government.

John Aglionby, East Africa Correspondent, and Emily Feng and Yuan Yang in Beijing

African Union officials have accused China of hacking its headquarters’ computer systems every night for five years and downloading confidential data. Beijing funded the AU’s $200m building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, while a Chinese state-owned company built it.

Analysts said the fact that the hack remained secret for a year after being discovered and that the AU was not commenting publicly demonstrated China’s dominant relationships with African states.

The data theft was exposed by French newspaper Le Monde Afrique and confirmed to the Financial Times on Monday. China denied the accusation.

The hack underscores the risk African nations take in allowing Chinese technology companies such prominent roles in developing their telecoms backbones, despite the US placing restrictions on investment by Huawei and ZTE.

The two companies have “built most of Africa’s telecoms infrastructure”, according to a McKinsey report on Chinese investment in Africa published last year titled Dance of the Lions and Dragons. <https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/global%20themes/middle%20east%20and%20africa/the%20closest%20look%20yet%20at%20chinese%20economic%20engagement%20in%20africa/dance-of-the-lions-and-dragons.ashx>

Le Monde reported that data transfer activity was at a peak every night between midnight and 2am from January 2012, when the building was inaugurated, to January 2017.

AU technicians discovered the organisation’s secrets were being copied on to servers in Shanghai, according to the article.

The AU has now acquired its own servers and all electronic communication is now encrypted and no longer passes through Ethio Telecom, Ethiopia’s state-run operator. Other enhanced security features have also been installed.

Aly-Khan Satchu, an investment analyst in Nairobi, said the hack was “really alarming”, partly because it exposed that “African countries have no leverage over China”.

He added: “There’s this theory in Africa that China is Santa Claus. It isn’t. Our leaders need to be disavowed of that notion.”

China’s ministry of foreign affairs denied the hacking allegations, calling the reports “baseless” and “complete nonsense”.

“China would in no way interfere with the internal policies of African countries or do anything that would hurt their interests,” it said in a statement on Monday.

AU spokespeople declined to comment but an African diplomat attending the AU’s annual heads of government summit on Monday said there “would be a lot of anger over this”. “This is not the sort of thing Africans will entertain and take lightly,” he said.

However, a western diplomat based in the region said the AU should not have been surprised considering China built and fitted out the 19-storey building that dominates the Addis Ababa skyline.

“When you let them build the whole system, of course they are listening in,” the diplomat said.

One AU official said there were “many issues with the building that are still being resolved with the Chinese. It’s not just cyber security.”

China State Construction Engineering Corporation, the state-owned company that built the headquarters, could not be reached for comment. Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Company, the developer of another building on the AU headquarters site, said it had not seen the report and declined to comment.

Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, promised $60bn in investment and aid to African countries at his last summit with African leaders, in South Africa two years ago. Chinese companies have built much of the road and rail infrastructure across the continent and more than 10,000 Chinese companies are active in the region, according to the McKinsey report.

“There is no other country with such depth and breadth of engagement in Africa across the dimensions of trade, investment, infrastructure financing, and aid,” the consultancy’s report said.

However, concerns about technological backdoors in Chinese tech hardware led US policymakers in 2012 to recommend blocking acquisition attempts from ZTE and Huawei.

Huawei has repeatedly been barred from making acquisitions in the US over national security concerns. This month, American carrier AT&T dropped its deal with Huawei to distribute Chinese-made handsets in the US.

Le Monde also reported that GCHQ, the British government listening agency, had intercepted communications between AU and UN officials in 2009 and 2010, citing documents released by US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

China hacks AU HQ<https://www.ft.com/content/c26a9214-04f2-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5>

#SittingDucks..That's what we are.

Ali Hussein

Principal

Hussein & Associates

Tel: +254 713 601113

Twitter: @AliHKassim

Skype: abu-jomo

LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim

13th Floor , Delta Towers, Oracle Wing,

Chiromo Road, Westlands,

Nairobi, Kenya.

Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the organizations that I work with.

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