Indeed, just watch the Snowden film to see how the US have total access to Telecom networks and power grids in both friendly and non-friendly countries

Vendor kit is nearly always black box. No reason to trust any of it. Verification of what it's doing is easy enough though. Don't give its management plane access to the Internet, monitor any telemetry and traffic sourcing from its IP interfaces.

If it's connecting via HTTPS to something you're not aware of it's probably a good idea to look into it further.

In reply to a post by MCM:

What evidence do you have to support your assertions? IMO none whatsoever. May I suggest removing those rose tinted spectacles. I for one no more trust the US government to be acting any differently than the Chinese in this respect.

Oh for ..... sake. Chinese law requires their companies to aid the state in espionage. UK law etc has no such provision. Chinese citizens who defy the Chinese state disappear. That doesn't happen in 5 eyes.

I know someone who decided against a Huawei phone on the basis of the negative publicity surrounding them, although they have no problem buying a Lenovo. In the end they played it safe and bought a Samsung!

You really should remove your rose tinted spectacles and look at bit closer at how the US government operates. We're not talking .about human rights which I agree are extremely poor in China but rather industrial and state espionage and intelligence gathering.

Do you still believe in the tooth fairy as well?

Cisco - to name just one company hve a history do backdooring switches etc at Government behest, not a rumour, it is widely known and has been the subject of legal actions.

This stuff was known about 10 years ago (or maybe more)

You need to get out more and read more of the technical press, Its well known and often discussed.