5G network in Germany
Ministry has indications of security problems at Huawei
6/19/2023 4:36 am
The EU Commission has spoken out in favor of a Huawei and ZTE ban. The question is how this demand affects Germany. According to the Ministry of the Interior, there are indications that another deployment could become a security risk for the Federal Republic.
According to a press report, a ban on certain network components from the Chinese suppliers Huawei and ZTE in public 5G mobile networks could be closer in Germany. “There are indications that their further use could probably affect public order or security in the Federal Republic,” a spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior told the “Handelsblatt”.
In view of this, the FDP digital politician Maximilian Funke-Kaiser called for the “fastest possible implementation” of the so-called fade-out clause in the “Handelsblatt”, “in order to initiate a planned, orderly exchange of critical components”. According to the report, politicians from the SPD and CDU are also campaigning for the expansion of components from unreliable suppliers. The clause is intended to set a period of time during which the critical components must be replaced by the mobile phone companies. The basis for this is the law on the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI law). According to a clause contained in paragraph 9b, the federal government can “prohibit the use of all critical components from the manufacturer (…)” if “serious” security problems are to be expected. The telecommunications providers Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefónica would be specifically affected.
Since the spring, the supreme cyber security authority BSI has been checking all security-relevant parts that are already installed in the network by the corporations. According to the report, the test should be completed in the summer. On Thursday, the EU Commission asked the EU countries to better protect their 5G mobile networks against providers they considered to be risky, such as Huawei or ZTE, and called for their technology to be dispensed with. The spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior said that the Ministry was “currently examining the effects of the EU Commission’s decision on the security policy assessment of the Federal Government in the context of the ongoing examination procedures”.
The FDP politician Funke-Kaiser sees Brussels’ actions as a “warning to the whole of Europe”. Anyone who becomes dependent on a systemic rival like the People’s Republic of China will “end up as a plaything for the Communist Party,” he told the “Handelsblatt”.