Telecommunications (Security) Bill (First sitting)

Dean Russell Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 14th January 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Christian Matheson]

Q So you know where all the dodgy stuff would be, if you were asked to find it.

Patrick Binchy: We know where all the equipment is for our main supplier, yes.

Derek McManus: On the question on the asset register, absolutely. As for whether networks are interconnected, Patrick gave a good answer. The O2 and Vodafone networks are somewhat different, in that we work together on a network share; the O2 team manages and maintains a network in a certain geography, and the Vodafone team manages and maintains a physical network in another geography. In that sense, the O2 and Vodafone networks are very interconnected.

Andrea Donà: It is vital that the secondary legislation that accompanies the Bill clarifies assets in the telecoms network architecture that will be in scope of the security requirement, so that we can work knowing what we have audited, and knowing that the auditors always shared with NCSC. We need a clear understanding between Ofcom and us as providers before the legislation is enforced, so that we understand exactly the boundaries and the scope, and we all work together, having done the audits, to close any vulnerabilities that we might have. That is a clear aspect of our working together: ensuring that the assets in the telecoms network infrastructure that are in scope are very well defined.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

Q Can you describe in layman’s terms the types of security threats that your organisations face, and how the security framework would address those?

Derek McManus: There are a number of different security threats. I will talk about network from a physical point of view, though there are obviously also scams and threats through direct human contact. It is mostly penetration of the physical network either from attack or from virus software. Attack is where foreign agencies or bodies look for vulnerabilities or holes in your defences. The role of the telecoms operator is to ensure that all its physical equipment and software are of the highest support and variation that defends from attack. We see quite a high volume of attack, either DDoS or penetration, on a regular basis. As I said, we do cyber-security by design. It is built into the fundamental processes of expanding and adding to our network, to protect us from those very things.

Andrea Donà: To add to what Derek says, it is also important that Government play a role in securing the additional security needs across the whole ecosystem of the supply chain, including the vendors. With the ever-changing nature of the threats we are exposed to, as Derek explained in layman’s terms, we have to change the protocols and the rules by which we and our vendors implement our defence mechanisms.

It is important that the Government do not leave providers such as us alone to reinforce these additional minimum security standards; they should play an active role in ensuring that vendors adapt their technology road map, so that things are done in a much more future-ready, cyber-security-compliant manner, because we face an ever-changing picture and ever-changing scenarios.

Patrick Binchy: In terms of the threats and penetration, as Derek said, the key things are that they get into the networks, either to bring the networks down and create chaos for the UK economy, or to extract information from the networks. All our security, as both my colleagues have said, is built into design, right from the very start of the procurement process. How do we protect against, and build networks that are able to detect, avoid and block, any of those risks and threats? We do that through our knowledge, the knowledge of NCSC and the authorities, and the knowledge of the wider industry on what is going on beyond the UK and in the international regime. We are constantly reviewing and updating our capability to protect against any of those threats.

[The Chair]

Gentlemen, we are right up against the clock. We have seven minutes left. Your answers are superb, but they need to be pithy, because we have three sets of questions coming and we need to get the answers in, and I am afraid that 12.30 pm is a hard cut-off; I am not allowed to extend beyond that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Thank you. The running order is Dean Russell, Miriam Cates, Kevan Jones, Christian Matheson and Chi Onwurah.

[Dean Russell]

Q Thank you, Chair. I would like to understand more how the diversification strategy that accompanies this Bill will benefit you as an organisation and the public.

Alex Towers: I think we see long term that diversification of vendors would be good for the operators in the marketplace if we can get to that point. It is important to say, I suppose, as the other operators were doing earlier on, that we are not at that point right now, so we are having to manage a situation where with the market as it stands we have a small number of very large-scale, important vendors and suppliers and we are having to remove one of them, clearly, from the 5G marketplace. That creates a degree of complexity and engineering difficulty that we need to just work our way through; so there is a lot of work to do just to manage within the current market framework to replace Huawei and to bring Nokia and Ericsson to the point we want. While we are doing that, if we can at the same time create the prospects of, in the longer term, a more open marketplace with a wider range of vendors—with other-scale vendors that do not quite work at the minute in the UK market, and Howard could probably explain exactly why that is, as well as with the potential for open RAN and other types of technology and software-based models to be developed—that is good for the whole industry and could be good for UK jobs and potential UK companies and therefore also for the citizen.

Howard Watson: I certainly welcome the Government’s supply chain diversification initiative here. It is concerning that we are moving from, essentially, three suppliers in the mobile supply chain down to only two. Our network going forward will use both of those. So widening that choice over time, for all the operators in the UK, is I think a critical opportunity. Please bear in mind that most operators quite like to have a primary source and a second source. It is unlikely that we will all start deploying equipment from four or five different vendors, because the operational challenge of the person in the van maintaining that tends to limit you to a choice of two; but being able to choose two from six is a lot better than choosing two from two, of course.

We welcome the three initiatives, which I will summarise. The first is whether we can we encourage Samsung, NEC and other large vendors who build mobile networks elsewhere to enter the UK market. The second is open RAN and it really just creates through more open standards the ability to have more players in that end-to-end solution. The third area really is to have a thriving research agenda for the UK. We really welcome the £250 million allocated in the recent spending review. We already have a thriving research capability in the UK and I think continuing to focus that on antenna design, optoelectronics and semiconductors will have a role to play in diversification going forward.

[Miriam Cates]

Q You have said in your written evidence that you fully support the objectives of the Bill, to improve security in the networks, but 20 years ago we could not possibly have anticipated the kind of threats that we face today, so it is safe to assume that we cannot perceive the kind of threats that we will face in the future. Do you think that the Bill is wide-ranging and flexible enough for the Government to be able to respond to future threats and, if not, what could be done to make it more future-proof?

Howard Watson: I actually think the structure of the Bill accommodates that quite well. It allows secondary legislation and guidelines to be upgraded. We note the critical role of the National Cyber Security Centre working with Government in doing that. I think, actually, you have taken care of that well with the way the Bill is structured.

Alex Towers: Yes, I would completely agree with that. I suppose our concern, slightly, at the minute, is to see some of the detail that is going to sit underneath the Bill in terms of a code of practice, in particular, and secondary legislation, because that is where it will become clear exactly what the implications are for operators. The sooner we can see some of that detail and get into the teeth of that, that would be great; but the way the Bill is structured, to allow that sort of detail to be updated on a regular basis as the world changes around us, seems totally sensible.