Ex-CIA head claims telecom giant Huawei 'spied' for China

Former head of CIA has reportedly alleged that Chinese telecommunications manufacturer Huawei Technologies has spied for the Chinese government and supplied sensitive intelligence to the officials.

According to Stuff.co.nz, Michael Hayden has said that the company is a security threat to Australia and the US' domestic phone networks and intelligence agencies have hard evidence of its activities.

Hayden said that it is his 'professional judgment' that Huawei supplied sensitive intelligence to Chinese officials, an assessment that backs up the federal government's decision in 2011 to ban it from helping build the national broadband network.

According to the report, Huawei, China's second-largest company, has been dogged by controversy in its efforts to sell telecommunications infrastructure to the Australian, Indian, American, European, UK, Canadian and New Zealand markets.

Hayden said that US intelligence agencies has information about Huawei's clandestine activities and it had shared with the Chinese state 'intimate and extensive knowledge of the foreign telecommunications systems it is involved with'.

Huawei's global cyber security officer, John Suffolk, described Hayden's comments as tired, unsubstantiated and defamatory, and said that the company's critics should present any evidence publicly.

Director of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, James Lewis also agreed with Hayden's claims and said that officials within several agencies have privately told him that Huawei is a national security threat.

The report added Hayden saying that he understands that it can be tough on business in Australia and the US because they are taking the lowest bidder out of the competition but it isn't very hard for them in the security domain.