According to the head of the Security Information Service (BIS), Michal Koudelka, devices from the Chinese company Huawei still pose a risk.
The use of the company’s technologies may mean a similar vulnerability in the event of a future conflict, as was the dependence on Russian gas after the start of the war in Ukraine, Koudelka said at today’s conference in the House of Representatives on the risks of economic and technological dependence on China.
The National Office for Cyber and Information Security (NÚKIB) issued a warning against the use of software and hardware from the Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE at the end of 2018. “The warning fundamentally affected the security of the state’s critical infrastructure. The private sector does not have to pay attention to it, but it should, it should not subordinate security to economic interests. It will not pay off in the future,” said Koudelka.
The director of counterintelligence said that recently there have been efforts to get the Chinese company’s equipment into hospitals or schools. “If there was a conflict where we were on the side of the free world, on the side of NATO, we would be in a similar dependence on these technologies as we were on gas in the case of Russia,” he said. According to him, the Czech Republic would be exposed to the threat that China would simply turn off the device, for example.
For the same reason, according to Koudelka, the security forces even before the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine warned against the involvement of the Russian company Rosatom in the nuclear tender for the construction of blocks in Dukovany. “We warned exactly that if there is a crisis, when we stand on the side of NATO and the democratic world, and Russia is sanctioned, then who will build Dukovany,” he said.
According to Koudelka, NÚKIB’s warning from 2018 fundamentally affected the safety of critical infrastructure. According to him, in the case of private individuals, the authorities must rely on warnings and education. “We cannot do more. However, everyone should be aware of this and not give up on the security of our country just for the sake of profit,” he said.
The head of NÚKIB, Lukáš Kintr, said that dependence on technology is still increasing. “Maintaining today’s standard of living is practically impossible in any field of human activity without current technological systems,” he said. Technologies are becoming more and more complex, people do not understand many of them and do not know how they work. “And we see efforts by adversaries and our challengers to control supply chains as a whole,” he said.
BIS in the annual message for 2023, she described China’s continued efforts to acquire advanced technology and know-how. The country concentrates on joint projects in which it moves the production process to its territory, where it can then more easily alienate Western technology. It also takes advantage of the trips of Chinese students to universities where it participates in development and research.
Koudelka warned today against Chinese abuse of the openness of the academic environment. “The most effective protection is to build system barriers, to screen foreign investments, to build awareness of risks for private entities,” he said. He advocated strengthening security clearances for Chinese scientists and students. “This also applies to the institutions that broadcast them,” he added.
Source: zpravy.tiscali.cz
