Digital cold war: Documents show the National Security Agency has been monitoring information about the workings of Huawei. Photo: Bloomberg

Washington: United States officials have long considered Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, a security threat, blocking it from business deals in the US for fear that the company would create "back doors" in its equipment that could allow the Chinese military or Beijing-backed hackers to steal corporate and government secrets.

But even as the US made a public case about the dangers of buying from Huawei, classified documents show the National Security Agency was creating its own back doors - directly into Huawei's networks.

The agency pried its way into the servers in Huawei's sealed headquarters in Shenzen, China's industrial heart, according to NSA documents provided by former contractor Edward Snowden.

Huawei: The NSA created back doors into the Chinese company's networks, leaked documents show. Photo: Bloomberg

It obtained information about the workings of the giant routers and complex digital switches that Huawei boasts connect one-third of the world's population, and monitored communications of the company's top executives.

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One of the goals of the operation, code-named "Shotgiant", was to find any links between Huawei and the People's Liberation Army, one 2010 document made clear.

But the plans went further: to exploit Huawei's technology so that when the company sells equipment to other countries - including US allies and nations that avoid buying US products - the NSA can roam through their computer and telephone networks to conduct surveillance and, if ordered by the president, offensive cyberoperations.

"Many of our targets communicate over Huawei-produced products,'' the NSA document said. "We want to make sure that we know how to exploit these products," it added, to "gain access to networks of interest" around the world.

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NSA breached Chinese telco Huawei seen as spy peril