Vodafone, Airtel and Idea may have been compromised by National Security Agency

GSM players Vodafone, Airtel and Idea, which use Huawei equipment, may have been compromised by the National Security Agency (NSA), the spy unit of the US.

According to documents from former NSA worker and now whistle-blower Edward Snowden, the NSA hacked into Huawei's servers with the hope of gaining information on government plans and of exploiting the company's products for spying purposes.

On Monday, dna reported that Tata Photon, MTS & Reliance Netconnect could have possibly been compromised by NSA.

NSA or the Chinese government for that matter do not need back doors to Huawei products because major holes in their firmware already exist which can be exploited, according to sources.

Exploit databases across the internet list exploits for Huawei products and there are many more such exploits available in underground Russian forums.

These attacks by the NSA also raise the need for indigenous technological development here in India for the purpose of secure communications, experts said.

"It is a known fact that in the modern age, telecom equipment and networks used for provisioning of telecom services are prone to spyware/malwares etc, emanating from the equipment itself or embedded software contained in it or from antisocial or anti national individuals or agencies. Such potential threats exist in the network, irrespective of the sources like telecom gear manufactured in China or supplied by some other vendors," Milind Deora, minister of state for communication and IT had told Rajya Sabha late 2012.