Collaborate Disseminate
Aventura Technologies and seven of its executives have been charged with illegally importing Chinese-made security and surveillance equipment and claiming it to be made in the United States. The company, based in Commack, New York, claimed its securit… Continue reading Aventura Charged With Selling Chinese-Made Security Equipment
U.S. prosecutors on Thursday announced charges against a New York company and seven of its current and former employees for allegedly selling Chinese-made surveillance equipment with known cybersecurity flaws while falsely claiming the technology was made in the U.S. Aventura Technologies, which makes security equipment like metal detectors and surveillance cameras, is accused of lying to customers, including the U.S. military, for over a decade by claiming to make their equipment in Long Island while surreptitiously importing it from China. In doing so, Aventura exposed its customers to “serious, known cybersecurity risks, and created a channel by which hostile foreign governments could have accessed some of the government’s most sensitive facilities,” the Justice Department said in a press release. The U.S. Air Force, Navy, and the Department of Energy were among Aventura’s clients. Jack Cabasso, the company’s de facto owner, his wife, Frances, and other senior company executives were charged with […]
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Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai revealed a proposal Monday that would bar U.S. communications companies from using federal subsidies to buy Huawei and ZTE equipment and services. It’s the latest push from the Trump administration to block Chinese-owned telecommunications equipment and services from being used in the U.S. due to national security concerns. Pai’s proposal would prevent communications companies from using the FCC’s $8.5 billion service fund, known as the Universal Service Fund, from buying equipment that poses a “national security threat” to the U.S. Pai specifically cites Huawei and ZTE. “We need to make sure our networks won’t harm our national security, threaten our economic security, or undermine our values. The Chinese government has shown repeatedly that it is willing to go to extraordinary lengths to do just that,” Pai said in a statement. “As the United States upgrades its networks to the next generation of wireless technologies — […]
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The cybersecurity proposals in the House Armed Services Committee’s draft of the national defense bill for fiscal 2020 include provisions that would create new directives on the Department of Defense’s tech acquisitions and supply chain. Chairman Adam Smith’s mark of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), issued Monday, seeks to prevent the DOD from acquiring foreign telecommunications and video surveillance equipment from companies that could pose security risks to the Pentagon. The provision effectively would ban or suspend contractors and subcontractors from doing business with not just the Pentagon but also the entire U.S. government, too. Chinese-based companies Huawei and ZTE, both of which have been under intense scrutiny by the Trump administration, are not directly named in the provision. The measure appears to align with an executive order the White House issued just last month that seeks to bar U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by foreign firms, with the concern that the gear […]
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Don’t expect U.S. officials to produce a “smoking gun” of public evidence that the Chinese government might be using telecommunications giant Huawei to further its interests in cyberspace, a senior National Security Agency official told CyberScoop. “Everybody is anxious for that smoking gun,” Rob Joyce, senior cybersecurity adviser at NSA, said in an interview. “It is not the case that you’re going to see people bring out and drop that smoking gun on the table … for all sorts of reasons about the way we understand the threat, the way we deal with the Chinese, the way we have to protect the ability to see and maybe defeat or deny that capability going forward.” U.S. officials have long accused Chinese tech companies Huawei and ZTE of being potential vessels for spying. One reason is that under Chinese law, companies are required to cooperate with national intelligence activities. Huawei and ZTE strenuously […]
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U.S. officials on Monday announced nearly two dozen criminal charges in two separate cases against Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei and its affiliates, escalating a long-running U.S. crackdown on Chinese tech companies over allegations of rule-breaking and spying. The first case, a 10-count indictment returned by a federal jury in Washington state, accuses Huawei subsidiaries of stealing trade secrets from telecom company T-Mobile. The other case, a 13-count indictment from a federal jury in New York, alleges that Huawei officials and subsidiaries committed bank and wire fraud, and violated trade sanctions against Iran. Huawei officials are also accused of obstructing justice by trying to move witnesses with knowledge of Huawei’s Iran-based business to China, where they could not be questioned. Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou is accused of being part of the fraud scheme. The U.S. is seeking Meng’s extradition, acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said at a press conference Monday. Huawei executives “repeatedly […]
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Two senators are trying to create a central government entity to deal with supply chain security and strategize over how to keep U.S. technologies safe from foreign theft in a bill introduced on Friday. The bill, from Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. and Mark Warner, D-Va., seeks to create a White House Office of Critical Technologies and Security. The new entity would take the lead in strategizing and coordinating across agencies to “protect against state-sponsored technology theft and risks to critical supply chains.” The proposed bill comes as the government increases pressure on China for allegedly using its corporate presence and workers in the U.S. to steal intellectual property. The Justice Department in December unsealed indictments against two Chinese citizens for allegedly spying on dozens of U.S. companies and agencies by hacking managed service providers. The White House is also weighing a ban on American companies’ use of technology bought from […]
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Hackers sponsored by foreign governments have chipped away at the United States’ global economic advantage through a steady campaign of intellectual property theft, according to a top National Security Agency official. “It pains me to see the core of how we’ve defined ourselves over the last century” – in terms of innovation and intellectual property – “be continuously pummeled by external nation-state and non-nation-state-sponsored malicious cyber activity,” NSA Deputy Director George Barnes said Tuesday at the Intelligence and National Security Summit (INSA) in National Harbor, Md. Rather than one, devastating cyberattack, Barnes said there has been a “slow drop” of “continual theft of intellectual property from our industries.” Former NSA director Keith Alexander has repeatedly called the theft of U.S. intellectual property “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.” In a New York Times op-ed last year, Alexander and Dennis Blair, a former Director of National Intelligence, said such theft costs the U.S. $600 billion per year. […]
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The Democratic National Committee has warned candidates running in the 2018 midterm elections not to use devices made by Chinese telecom firms Huawei and ZTE because of security concerns. “[P]lease make sure that you are not using or purchasing ZTE or Huawei devices anywhere within your staff – for personal or work-related use,” DNC Chief Security Officer Bob Lord wrote in an email obtained by CyberScoop. Lord sent the email Friday to Democratic state parties and the DNC’s sister committees. U.S. intelligence officials have long expressed concerns that equipment from Huawei and ZTE could be used to spy on Americans due to the companies’ alleged links to the Chinese government. Both companies have vigorously denied the allegations. Lord cited congressional testimony from February, in which U.S. intelligence directors raised security concerns about the Chinese companies. “I wanted to highlight that the intelligence community does not make statements like this lightly,” […]
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As the U.S. government works to neutralize its Chinese counterparts’ efforts to conduct surveillance via commercial telecom products, it may unintentionally jeopardize the United States’ bid to beat China to a nationwide 5G network. This summer, U.S. officials, policymakers and allies have cracked down on Huawei and ZTE, two large Chinese smartphone and telecommunications equipment manufacturers. The pair are believed to have a cozy relationship with the Chinese Communist Party and People’s Liberation Army. Washington fears that relationship could lead Beijing to tap into equipment owned by those companies to siphon sensitive information and possibly lay the groundwork for cyberattacks. But many industry, trade and technological experts are worried the measures may come at a steep price. The quest to upend China’s surveillance capabilities may be hurting America’s competitiveness in the race to develop and roll out 5G wireless technology. The dilemma presents the latest — and perhaps fiercest — technological showdown between Washington […]
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