The Chinese telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology and equipment provider ZTE Corporation has launched its first domestic cybersecurity lab in Nanjing, China, thus confirming its commitment to the ICT industry to counter cybersecurity threats. The company is also planning to expand across the globe with similar facilities in the near future, with the first installations being in Italy and Belgium.
According to a statement by ZTE, the opening of a new lab represents an important milestone for the company as it aims to increase transparency and enhance trust with third parties, including customers, global regulators and other stakeholders. This initiative is in direct response to the national security concerns that are prompting several countries to apply restrictions on the use of equipment from Chinese vendors in 5G rollouts.
Zhong Hong, Chief Security Officer at ZTE, said, “The security lab is an open and cooperative platform for the industry. ZTE plans to gradually achieve its cybersecurity goals through three steps: first, meeting the requirements of cybersecurity laws, regulations and industry standards as well as certification schemes; second, conducting an open dialogue to enhance transparency and establishing cooperation with customers as well as regulatory agencies; and third, sustaining the open cooperation mechanism to contribute to cybersecurity standardization.”
The company stated that the lab in Nanjing is designed as an industry cooperation platform involving stakeholders and academia, to enable and develop in-depth research and exploration in the field of security. The cybersecurity lab will provide security assessment and audit services such as source code reviews of ZTE products including 4G and 5G, security design audits, procedural document reviews, and black box testing.
Xiang Jiying, Chief Scientist at ZTE, said, “If anybody is concerned about the security of our products, we can open the source code for customers and governments. If they want, they can take a view of the source code and even scan the source code of our products for monitoring.”
As the company moves forward, it will consider establishing new labs in compliance with ZTE customers’ security demands and business opportunities. In these labs, customers will have access to important technical documentation concerning ZTE products, and also have the ability to carry out manual and automated security testing of the vendor’s equipment and services.
