Of all the companies to push for higher cybersecurity standards, Huawei had to walk into the conversation. China's largest phone maker, Huawei Technologies Co., said in a white paper published this week that it wants IT companies and regulators to work on a new broad range of security standards.
The irony, of course, is that Huawei has had a hard time finding any significant market outside of China and its sphere of influence because of long-running suspicions that the Chinese telecom equipment maker has been tied to China's government.
The U.S. market has broadly shut out the company over fears that it might garner enough information about U.S. networks to leave them open to Chinese cyber spying.
Oh how the tables turn. Now, after the NSA PRISM leaks have shown how much access the U.S. cyberspying program has to private individuals' data - much of it on U.S companies like Google, Yahoo, and Facebook's services - Huawei has begun lobbying for an international set of security standards.
It doesn't hurt the company's PR to be calling for such a collaborative effort either, of course.
The white paper, called "Cyber Security Perspectives," is a call for corporations and regulators to set global cybersecurity standards, according to Fortune, and it includes examples of Huawei's best practices.
The move is mostly seen as an attempt by Huawei to lift restrictions and enable the company to move into markets it has been shunned by.
"America has genuine concerns, and it's Huawei's responsibility to satisfy those genuine concerns," John Suffolk, the company's global cybersecurity officer, said in a phone interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. "We will continue to work with our American colleagues to satisfy their needs and concerns and we believe we can do that."
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