Huawei Cyber Security Transparency Centre opens in Brussels

Huawei has opened its Cyber Security Transparency Centre in Brussels, with over 200 representatives from regulators, telecom carriers, enterprises and the media attending the event. Representatives from the European Union, the GSMA and the World Economic Forum spoke at the opening ceremony.

Trust in cybersecurity is a major challenge that the world faces in the digital era. Ken Hu, Huawei’s Deputy Chairman, said: “Trust needs to be based on facts, facts must be verifiable and verification must be based on common standards. We believe that this is an effective model to build trust for the digital era.”

Call on collaboration

New developments in cloud, intelligence and software-defined everything are posing unprecedented challenges to the cybersecurity of ICT infrastructure. The lack of consensus on cybersecurity, technical standards, verification systems and legislative support further exacerbates these challenges. Safeguarding cybersecurity is considered to be a responsibility held by all industry players and society as a whole. Growing security risks are significant threats to future digital society.

To address these challenges, Huawei has opened a Cyber Security Transparency Centre in Brussels, aiming to offer government agencies, technical experts, industry associations and standards organisations a platform where they can communicate and collaborate to balance out security and development in the digital era.

Based in Europe, the Cyber Security Transparency Centre has three major functions:

First, the centre will showcase Huawei’s end-to-end cybersecurity practices, from strategies and supply chain to R&D and products and solutions. This will allow visitors to experience cybersecurity with Huawei’s products and solutions in areas including 5G, IoT and cloud.

Second, the centre will facilitate communication between Huawei and key stakeholders on cybersecurity strategies and end-to-end cybersecurity and privacy protection practices. Huawei will work with industry partners to explore and promote the development of security standards and verification mechanisms to facilitate technological innovation in cybersecurity across the industry.

Third, the centre will provide a product security testing and verification platform and related services to Huawei customers.

The opening of the Cyber Security Transparency Centre in Brussels demonstrates Huawei’s stronger cybersecurity commitment to governments, customers and other partners in Europe and will provide better support to facilitate collaboration.

Standards and verification: An effective model to build trust

Safeguarding cybersecurity is considered to be a shared goal of all stakeholders, including equipment providers, telecom carriers and regulators. Huawei has placed cybersecurity and user privacy protection at the very top of their agenda. Huawei’s approach to cybersecurity is ‘security or nothing’. Huawei’s cybersecurity transparency centres are open to customers and independent third-party testing organisations. They are invited to perform fair, objective and independent security tests and verifications according to industry-recognised cybersecurity standards and best practices. These centres are equipped with dedicated testing environments to provide customers and third parties with Huawei products, software, technical documents, testing tools and necessary technical support.

Hu said: “We welcome all regulators, standards organisations and customers to fully use this platform. Through our cybersecurity transparency centres, we hope to collaborate more closely on security standards, verification mechanisms and security technology innovation. Together, we can improve security across the entire value chain and help build trust through verification.”

He continued: “A prosperous digital Europe requires an open and future-oriented cybersecurity environment. Europe has released the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which is an open, transparent and globally-leading data and privacy protection standard. We believe that European regulators are on track to lead the international community in terms of cybersecurity standards and regulatory mechanisms. We commit to working more closely with all stakeholders in Europe, including regulators, carriers and standards organisations, to build a system of trust based on facts and verification.”