US spy bureau NSA ‘hacked Huawei HQ’: China confirms Snowden leak
- Chinese State Security Ministry report acknowledges cyberattacks detailed in internal papers revealed by former contractor
- The report accuses the NSA of ‘repeated, systematic attacks’ on the telecoms giant and other targets in China and other countries
A Ministry of State Security report published on Wednesday said the NSA, through its Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO), “repeatedly carried out systematic and platform-based attacks” on China in an attempt to steal its “important data resources”.
“In 2009, the [TAO] began to hack servers at Huawei headquarters and continued to monitor them,” said the report, which was published on the ministry’s official social media platform.
The TAO is the NSA’s cyberwarfare intelligence-gathering unit, now called Computer Network Operations. In 2013, Snowden – a former NSA contractor – released internal documents showing the agency’s targets included Huawei’s sealed headquarters in Shenzhen.
In addition to Huawei Technologies, the ministry report listed the hacking of Northwestern Polytechnical University in September 2022 as another example of China becoming a primary target of US cyberespionage.
The release of the ministry’s report comes less than a week after the ministry said it had identified NSA operatives while investigating a recent cyberattack on Northwestern Polytechnical University, and vowed to root out all “digital spies”.
