WCA July 2018

From the Americas company’s campaign to win over its congressional critics. (“Huawei, Failing to Crack US Market, Signals a Change in Tactics,” 17 th April) After a decade of mostly fruitless efforts to dispel Washington’s suspicions that it has ties to the Chinese government, Huawei on 17 th April learned that the Federal Communications Commission had voted to impose a rule that could effectively kill off what little business it has in the United States. Although Huawei was not mentioned by name, the new rule would block federally subsidised telecommunications carriers from using suppliers deemed to pose a risk to American national security. According to the Times ’s two technology reporters, like other major tech companies, American or Chinese, Huawei has been caught in the crossfire as the Trump administration ratchets up efforts to stop China’s high-tech ambitions. The two countries are waging a new kind of cold war, they wrote, “and with each increasingly suspicious of the other’s technology, winners are chosen based on national allegiances.” Huawei’s main Chinese rival, ZTE, also hit a roadblock in Washington the same week. The Commerce Department said it would ban the much smaller company from buying American components on a finding that it made false statements to the government as part of an investigation into possible violations of American sanctions.  As a sign of Huawei’s acceptance that its battle for a USA presence is not one it is likely to win, Messrs Zhong and Mozur recalled the discovery, in January, of security flaws in the microprocessors inside nearly all of the world’s computers. A Senate committee wrote to Huawei’s founder to ask what the company knew about the vulnerabilities. Huawei did not respond. “Some things cannot change their course according to our wishes,” Eric Xu, Huawei’s deputy chairman, said at the company’s annual meeting with analysts on 17 th April. “With some things, when you let them go, you actually feel more at ease.”  This is not to say that Mr Xu is reining in his ambitions for Huawei, or that efforts to impede the company in the USA are likely to stop its rapid expansion elsewhere. In March, Huawei’s president of consumer handsets, Kevin Ho, said the company is pivoting to Europe and developing Asian markets. He called them priorities “No. 1” and “No. 2.” Also in March, Huawei unveiled its latest flagship phone at the Grand Palais in Paris. In Finland the company employs more than 300 engineers – many of them former Nokia employees – developing cameras, audio algorithms and 5G technology. In February, Huawei completed the world’s first 5G test cell in partnership with London-based Vodafone. The USA is the world’s principal source of malware attacks, but an American telecom works hard to thwart the malefactors “According to a CenturyLink report on distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks worldwide, the United States holds

the dubious distinction of leading the world as the most common point of origin for malicious Internet activities. Russia and China follow in second and third place, respectively.” Having filled out the top ten sources of Internet contamination (Brazil, Ukraine, Germany, France, Netherlands, Turkey, United Kingdom), Linda Hardesty of SdxCentral (Denver, Colorado) went on to describe CenturyLink’s particular area of expertise: botnets. (“US Leads the World in the Origination of DDoS Attacks,” 19 th April) Botnet malware enlists unsecure devices that are connected to networks – such as a compromised server, a computer, a cell phone, or any Internet of Things (IoT) device such as a DVR, security camera or sensor. The malware turns these devices into “bots” to bombard a targeted site with requests. A compromised device that has been infected by malware communicates with a command and control (C2) server. Each of the millions of bots tracked by CenturyLink’s threat research labs was witnessed communicating with a known C2 server, according to the report from the Monroe, Louisiana-based telecommunications company. Its bleak assessment: “The most dangerous botnets contain hundreds of thousands of members waiting to attack at a moment’s notice.” As reported by Ms Hardesty, to track botnets CenturyLink’s researchers collect data from 114 billion network traffic flow (NetFlow) records daily, capturing over 1.3 billion “security events” and monitoring 5,000 known C2 servers. The company identifies the origins of the servers and the bots they control. “Traffic between a network and any C2 server is a powerful risk indicator that a vulnerable and potentially compromised host exists,” states the report. “Tracking C2 data reveals victim hotspots and activity hubs favoured by malicious actors.” CenturyLink cannot fully deactivate a C2 that is not within its sphere of control. And many of these C2s are hosted in other countries at “bulletproof” hosting sites. But, wrote Ms Hardesty, “CenturyLink does stop the C2 from accessing its network and resources. And the company works with the broader Internet community to resolve the risk.”  CenturyLink, which culls its data from its own Internet connections, would appear to be well situated to lead the charge against botnets. It recently acquired Level 3 (Broomfield, Colorado), and the combined company owns one of the world’s largest Internet backbones. But it has its work cut out for it. The exploitation of Internet-connected devices to create botnets for DDoS attacks began in earnest only in 2014 with the Gafgyt malware. But botnets grew quickly and in 2016 became even more damaging with the Mirai malware that was responsible for the largest DDoS attack on record.

Dorothy Fabian Features Editor

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Wire & Cable ASIA – July/August 2018

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