Cybersecurity and Cyberwarfare

Throughout the world, ink is being spilled and electrons exercised in a frenetic focus on fifth generation wireless technologies, or 5G. The 5G discussion, with all its permutations and combinations, has grown to resemble an elementary school soccer game where everyone chases the ball, first in one direction, then another. There are five often misunderstood facts to know about 5G:

A senior US official told the Commerce Department’s enforcement staff that Huawei should still be treated as blacklisted, days after President Donald Trump sowed confusion with a vow to ease a ban on sales to the firm. President Trump's surprise announcement to promise Chinese President Xi Jinping that he would allow US companies to sell products to Huawei spawned confusion among industry players and government officials struggling to understand what Huawei policy he had unveiled.

President Donald Trump’s decision to allow US companies to continue selling to Huawei followed an extensive lobbying campaign by the US semiconductor industry that argued the ban could hurt America’s economic and national security. In multiple high-level meetings and a letter to the Commerce Department, the companies argued for targeted action against Huawei instead of the blanket ban the Trump administration imposed in May.

As the US gets set to ban certain Chinese manufacturers from selling telecommunications equipment to US service providers, CoBank is warning that rural Americans’ access to communications services could be damaged if insufficient funding is available for rural service providers to replace prohibited equipment already installed in their networks.

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a cease-fire on trade that will remove some curbs on Huawei buying high-tech equipment from the US, for the moment lifting one cloud over the global economy. Under the cease-fire, the US agreed to put off additional tariffs on Chinese goods indefinitely. In response, China will start buying large amounts of American farm products, President Trump said.

Senior Trump administration officials met to discuss whether to seek legislation prohibiting tech companies from using forms of encryption that law enforcement can’t break — a provocative step that would reopen a long-running feud between federal authorities and Silicon Valley. The encryption challenge, which the government calls “going dark,” was the focus of a National Security Council meeting. Apparently, senior officials debated whether to ask Congress to effectively outlaw end-to-end encryption, which scrambles data so that only its sender and recipient can read it.

A divided House passed an election security bill to strengthen the nation’s voting systems, with Democrats arguing that protecting the nation from another attack like the one Russia waged in 2016 was imperative.

Apparently, a number of the US’ biggest chip makers have sold millions of dollars of products to Huawei despite a Trump administration ban on the sale of American technology to the Chinese telecommunications company. Since the Commerce Department enacted the ban in May, American companies including Intel and Micron have found ways to sell technology to Huawei. The components began to flow to Huawei about three weeks ago. Goods produced by American companies overseas are not always considered American-made, and the suppliers are taking advantage of this.

On June 24, researchers at Boston-based cybersecurity firm Cybereason revealed the results of tracking a years-long cyberespionage campaign they've called Operation Soft Cell, which they say targeted the networks of at least 10 cellular providers around the world. And while researchers' visibility into that hacking campaign is incomplete, they say it appears to be a prolific but highly targeted espionage campaign likely based in China.

Network security is national security.  The risks of having insecure equipment in our networks are alarming. Next week I will be convening stakeholders—including carriers, manufacturers, academics, and trade associations, to start crafting and developing a practical path forward. Specifically, I anticipate digging into what it will take to Find the insecure equipment, Fix the problem, and help Fund the process. Find it. Fix it.