Huawei Denies Report About Hidden 'Backdoors' in Its Software

Huawei denied on Tuesday a Bloomberg report saying that mobile operator Vodafone had found so-called hidden "backdoors" in software provided in 2011 by the Chinese company.

Bloomberg reported that Vodafone found vulnerabilities in equipment provided by Huawei for its Italian business. Vodafone said security flaws had been found in 2011 and 2012 but said they were quickly fixed.

"There is absolutely no truth in the suggestion that Huawei conceals backdoors in its equipment," Huawei said in a statement, adding the Bloomberg story "refers to a maintenance and diagnostic function, common across the industry, as well as vulnerabilities, which were corrected over seven years ago."

Vodafone, Europe's biggest telecoms group, said it had found security vulnerabilities in two products and that both incidents had been resolved quickly. Bloomberg reported the news first.

Huawei said it was made aware of historical vulnerabilities in 2011 and 2012 and that they had been addressed at the time.

"Software vulnerabilities are an industry-wide challenge," it said. "Like every Information and Communications Technology vendor we have 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."

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