The National Security Agency (NSA) accessed the servers of Chinese telecoms company Huawei looking for any evidence that it may have been spying on behalf of the Chinese government, according to leaked documents.
The claims, published by The New York Times and German publication Der Spiegel, suggest the NSA got hold of confidential information and spied on Huawei executives' email, including that of Huawei founder and ex-military officer, Ren Zhengfei.
The spy organisation also managed to gain access to Huawei's source code for various products and information on 1,400 customers.
The operation, codenamed "Shotgiant" started in 2009 and targeted the company as it was perceived to be a threat to US-based networking companies.
"We currently have good access and so much data that we don't know what to do with it," said one internal NSA document.
"Many of our targets communicate over Huawei produced products, we want to make sure that we know how to exploit these products."
"Huawei's widespread infrastructure will provide the PRC [People's Republic of China] with SIGINT [signals intelligence] capabilities."
Following publication of the revelations, Huawei immediately hit back, slamming NSA's actions.
"If the actions in the report are true, Huawei condemns such activities that invaded and infiltrated into our internal corporate network and monitored our communications," Huawei's global cyber security officer, John Suffolk, told Reuters.
"Corporate networks are under constant probe and attack from different sources such is the status quo in today's digital age. We reiterate that Huawei disagrees with all activities that threaten the security of networks and is willing to work with all governments, industry stakeholders and customers, in an open and transparent manner, to jointly address the global challenge of network security."
Hong Lei, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman told Reuters that China has lodged many complaints with the US over the allegations and demanded that the US "makes a clear explanation and stop such acts."
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