Apparently there were glaring security gaps in a government data center set up by the technology group Huawei in Papua New Guinea. Experts believe that was on purpose.
This revelation is particularly explosive because, according to the news, the safety deficiencies were apparently not an oversight. The report suggests on the one hand that there was a deliberate attempt by Huawei to use lax cybersecurity, but this plan was thwarted by the fact that the center quickly fell into disrepair because there was not enough money for maintenance and operation, said on Tuesday the Australian Financial Review. As a result, there was a lack of digital protective equipment such as firewalls in the data center. In addition, encryption algorithms were no longer secure even before the data center was opened. These security flaws would have meant that an external hacker attack would not have been noticed.
“Core switches are not behind firewalls. This means remote access would not be detected by security settings within the appliances,” the report said, according to AFR.
The poor condition of the data center meant that only a handful of government agencies transferred their data there. It was put into operation two years ago when the country appeared to host the summit of the Apec states. Due to the lack of funds however, software licenses quickly expired and batteries that were no longer functional were no longer replaced. In a statement by the technology company to the newspaper, it was said that the project met the relevant industry standards and the requirements of the customer.
Australia has been watching the Chinese engagement in the South Pacific for some time with suspicion. It fears that some of the countries will be driven into debt traps. China is already the largest donor after Australia. According to a report by the Australian sources, China has given Papua New Guinea alone 150 million dollars for digital projects, including the national data center and a broadband network.
