HUAWEI has asked the world’s most famous smartphone hacker to attend a secret meeting in Munich later this month in a bid to attract the attention of global governments, TechCrunch reported on Tuesday.

The meeting will take place on November 16, and the company plans to devote the secret meeting to offering a reward program for vulnerability detection, which allows them to receive financial rewards for discovering security vulnerabilities in the company’s products.

Huawei’s rewards program will focus on previous and upcoming mobile devices, as well as the mobile operating system: HarmonyOS, which Huawei may use as a replacement for Google’s Android system.

The move comes amid growing pressure on Huawei because of its relationship with the Chinese government. The company has repeatedly denied claims led by the United States that it may be forced to spy on behalf of Beijing. This did not prevent the administration of President Donald Trump from imposing sanctions that prohibit US companies from dealing with Huawei. The pressure has prompted companies such as Google to withdraw support for the Android system on which Huawei relies on its phones, prompting the technology giant to find, or build alternatives.

A TechCrunch source described the event as similar to a secret meeting hosted by Apple in August, where the technology giant handed the most famous cyber-security researchers special copies of the iPhone to break through security vulnerabilities and find them. According to sources, Huawei is trying through its secret meeting to prove to governments the sincerity and willingness to work with hackers and security researchers to enhance the security of their products.

Huawei will not be the first to launch the rewards program, as its competitions in the smartphone market, including Google, Apple and Samsung, offer their own reward programs.

Source : TechCrunch