The accusations contained in the report are broad and unspecific. Lindner said the report is "lacking truth in data," which is exactly why he tears apart millions of lines of router code looking for security problems. With Huawei, he's found plenty.

"I'm somewhat in support of what the report says, not for the reasons the report says but simply because of quality assurance," Lindner said. "I'd rather have Cisco build government networks than Huawei, not because Huawei is Chinese, but because in comparison, Cisco has higher-quality devices."

After the vulnerabilities were detailed at Defcon, Huawei said it has rigorous security practices and follows industry best practices.

Still, it is possible that even a simple coding mistake could leave Huawei vulnerable to accusations of working with Chinese intelligence. Lindner said it is very difficult to figure out what is a "backdoor" in code, or a way get inside a system.

For example, if security researchers discover an engineer account that wasn't deleted before router code was finalized, it could give ammunition to critics that the company was in collusion with other interested parties.