Security News > 2020 > January > 5G Security in the Balance as Britain Navigates Brexit

No date has yet to even be penciled in for answering a question which, while it lacks the scale of Brexit, will nevertheless also help shape the future of Britain's national security: Whether the country will allow Chinese vendors, including Huawei and ZTE, to be part of its 5G rollout.

The U.S. National Security Agency's Rob Joyce, the senior cybersecurity strategy adviser to the director of the agency, said last April that any member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance - comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K. and U.S. - that chose to use Huawei or other Chinese vendors might no longer be trusted to receive the most sensitive intelligence.

The U.S. push to block Huawei - the world's largest manufacturer of 5G gear - from Britain's 5G rollout is hampered on several fronts.

Secret technical assessment prepared by the intelligence services reportedly also concluded that the risks of using Huawei as part of the national 5G rollout - especially for non-core parts of the network - can be minimized if the process is appropriately managed.

Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, says China's increasing technological prowess - across not just the areas of 5G and IT but also artificial intelligence, biotechnology and quantum computing - should be the trigger for a "Sputnik moment," driving massive investments to enable the U.S. to develop and field its own, top-of-class alternatives.

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https://www.inforisktoday.com/blogs/5g-security-in-balance-as-britain-navigates-brexit-p-2853