דוח בארה"ב: מודולים ביתיים "חכמים" תוצרת סין מהווים סכנה לביטחון הלאומי

A new report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies warns that Chinese-made cellular modules could pose a significant national security risk to the U.S. And joining us now is Rex Lee, cybersecurity advisor at MySmartPrivacy and tech journalist. Rex, good afternoon to you. Thank you for having me on. Now to start, can you talk to us about what exactly the risk is here with these cellular modules? What exactly can they do? Well, the cellular modules that go into these devices are usually on 4G and 5G cellular phone networks. They usually go on like security systems and or IoT devices or remote devices, as well as home environmental systems and so forth. So they support a lot of remote type of devices that are associated with things like IoT networks for utilities, where they're controlling a NB-IoT network or a FAN network or an AMI, automated meter reading network, and other infrastructure like that. So it's highly critical to make sure that the connectivity between these IoT devices that have these cellular modules in them is secure. So how long has this been a concern and what are we or what is the U.S. doing about it? Well, the main concern here, there's two security issues with this issue. If you're using IoT devices, let's say the IoT devices are even made in China, all of these remote IoT devices are driven off of applications on your phone. So there's another security risk there because most people know that the apps and platforms today support targeted advertising, which means that the apps enable the developers to conduct audio, video, and physical surveillance on the end user, as well as data mine information off of the host device. Now, some of these IoT devices, such as a home environmental network or even a security system for a home or a business, a lot of those cameras have mics on them as well. So they're able to conduct audio, video, and physical surveillance while data mining the individual, not only from the endpoint device that has the cellular module in it, but also through the app, which means that when you walk away from your home security system or an IoT network that may have these unsecured cellular modules within them, you're still being surveilled and data mined through the app by the company that supports the products and services. Some may think that's a cybersecurity threat only if it's a foreign company, but I happen to think also with a domestic company. And again, a lot of these IoT devices, even drones that work remotely and also have these cellular modules within them, so they can backhaul all of the data that they're collecting, a lot of these products are actually made in China. And so you have an end-to-end security problem, not only with the backdoors and the cellular modules, but within the apps and platforms that support these products and services. So you've explained a lot there, just go a little bit deeper for me, or let's expand a little bit. When we talk about Chinese companies selling these modules, and that they're the companies that we mostly are getting these from, they're connected to the Chinese Communist Party, if they are, if you think they are. What is the risk here if the Chinese companies are getting information from us and controlling it, and then having this relationship with the Chinese Communist Party? What could they do with it? Well, regarding the relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, I was asked to write a report for a security session that I'm doing in the utility industry that was given to the FCC, the NSA, NIST, and CISA on what's termed as military-civil fusion programs in China, Russia, and the United States to look at these risks. Now, getting a little bit deeper at that level, what civil-military fusion programs are, are simply this, the ability to weaponize consumer and enterprise products and services for warfare. We see this happening today with Palantir in the United States, being able to weaponize data, and then target people and go after those people, while China and Russia have similar capabilities through their civil-military fusion programs, and those roll right up to the CCP. And that's the deeper threat.