Huawei accuses U.S. of cyberattacks, pressing employees to spy

In a barrage of tweets, Huawei accused the U.S. government of resorting to a battery of actions, including launching cyberattacks, to disrupt its business and coerce companies and other countries to ban the embattled telecommunications company’s products.

The U.S. used cyberattacks “to infiltrate Huawei’s intranet and internal information,” the company tweeted and reiterated in a release. It also accused the FBI of pressing Huawei employees to spy and collect information on the company.

The U.S. has engaged in a lengthy dispute regarding Huawei over espionage allegations, and in May, amid escalating trade war tensions with China, President Trump declared a national emergency that banned U.S. telecommunications companies from using equipment from foreign firms that could threaten national security.

The Commerce Department followed up immediately by placing Huawei  and 70 affiliates on the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) Entity List to “prevent American technology from being used by foreign owned entities in ways that potentially undermine U.S. national security or foreign policy interests,” Ross said in a statement at the time.

But last month the Commerce Department renewed a temporary license that allows U.S. companies to sell their products to Huawei but blacklisted exporting products to 45 companies associated with the Chinese technology firm.

Ross justified the 90-day renewal in a release, saying that “more time is necessary to prevent any disruption.”

Huawei Twitter outburst coincides with reports claiming that China was likely behind a recently exposed malware campaign that used watering-hole attacks to target iPhone users for more than two years was reportedly part of an effort to track Uyghur Muslims based in China’s Xinjiang state.

The campaign was actually broader than originally thought, and attempted to infect Android and Microsoft Windows devices as well.