Apple and Amazon deny Bloomberg Chinese hacking story

[HEXUS]

Original report said that the PLA added a 'spy chip' to their Supermicro server components.

Read more.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Its spys galore. China spys on us,Russia is spying on us,the NSA is spying on us,MS is spying on us......!

[Tabbykatze]

I'd love to know what this chip was made of, bullpoomium? Yep, sounds like it...

*grumbles while walking out the door about miniaturization and how some peoples fantasies just don't make reality and how ridiculously stupid the Bloomberg article was*

Edit: Yes, there was a sub-grain of rice computer and this technology is, relatively, potentially possible. But I would like to see genuine evidence brought forward by Bloomberg else this is a heavily salacious attack and ties in with Trump recently saying China is attacking their midterms. Something is fishy...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I'd love to know what this chip was made of, bullpoomium? Yep, sounds like it...

*grumbles while walking out the door about miniaturization and how some peoples fantasies just don't make relative and how ridiculously stupid this article was*

MOAR AMMO in the trade war methinks - convenient how something discovered allegedly in 2015 only gets "leaked" in 2018:

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...-report-claims

Oh well the only way forward is for tech companies to move more production back to the US and Europe then,but then the money tree won't like that right??

[Dashers]

Real or not, it's an interesting concept. Given the level of out-sourced manufacturing, I'm sure it would be reasonably easy for an adjustment to be made even if the chip was relatively large and complex.

I can't imagine many organisations do an electrical component check on their boards compared to the (not readily available) manufacturer design specifications.

[peterb]

I know of a major network user that stopped using their network provider because of security concerns when they they started to used Huwai network components in the WAN infrastructure.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Well I hope people stop using Cisco routers too.

[DanceswithUnix]

What an odd story.

I'm sure something like substituting a hacked lights-out maintenance BIOS would be far easier and also would add some plausible deniability that a re-flash could have happened anywhere.

[Corky34]

Bloomberg maybe "confident in the sourcing" of the original story but if they'd bothered to talk to people with knowledge of computers and exercised some basic logical thinking it probably would've raised some red flags.

I'm not saying their claims are untrue just that it's full of holes, some of which an article published by Servethehome covers.

There is one area where the Bloomberg piece makes no sense. Supermicro servers are procured for US Military contracts and use to this day. Supermicro’s government business is nowhere near a large as some other vendors, but there are solutions providers who sell Supermicro platforms into highly sensitive government programs.

If the FBI, or other intelligence officials, had reason to believe Supermicro hardware was compromised, then we would expect it would have taken less than a few years for this procurement to stop.

Assuming the Bloomberg story is accurate, that means that the US intelligence community, during a period spanning two administrations, saw a foreign threat and allowed that threat to infiltrate the US military. If the story is untrue, or incorrect on its technical merits, then it would make sense that Supermicro gear is being used by the US military.

[philehidiot]

If that's actually a photo of the board in question it is a little confusing as to how small that little brown connector is on it - so small as to be pointless. I'm guessing this is just a graphic?

And frankly this isn't surprising. I'm sure we do the same. Oh wait, yes, yes we do. Right the way back to when GCHQ tapped the first undersea cables or to our network of radio traffic interceptors around Europe. The whole thing is one big game to these people.

[Tabbykatze]

I like how STH is calling an SEC investigation into anyone who might have known the report was going to be published and dumped shares.

This single article had over halved the share price of Supermicro Stock. If Bloomberg is found to have co-operated with some kind of Corporate stock manipulation, I hope they get taken out behind the Chemical sheds and shot as a warning to other news organisations not to comply with this kind of skullduggery.

Unless it's state sponsored but then the person most likely at the root of it can't even have his phone taken off him to stop him tweeting.

I know of a major network user that stopped using their network provider because of security concerns when they they started to used Huwai network components in the WAN infrastructure.

A vast amount of networking in the western world is Huawei from DSLAMs to major infrastructural systems, both the DOCSIS3 and Openreach networks are Huawei. Not many other players you don't have Huawei equipment around the place!

[mtyson]

Supermicro shares ended down 41 per cent yesterday. If one believes the Bloomberg news was unfounded it might be worth betting on the rebound?

[Corky34]

MOAR AMMO in the trade war methinks - convenient how something discovered allegedly in 2015 only gets "leaked" in 2018:

I suspect an article about this on the register comes pretty close to a conclusion, that after Obama had a meeting, back in 2015, with Jinping in which China said it would no longer turn a blind eye to intellectual property theft from American companies the intelligence community feared they'd be facing budget cuts so discreetly briefed a select group that China had developed a new type of spy chip.

I can't imagine many organisations do an electrical component check on their boards compared to the (not readily available) manufacturer design specifications.

Many don't but enough, especially when it comes to the military and large companies like AWS, Apple, etc, do run a load of checks on network traffic and what the software (both firmware and 'normal' software) running on their hardware does.

[Dashers]

There's a good analysis of the story on el reg.

[Strawb77]

Supermicro shares ended down 41 per cent yesterday. If one believes the Bloomberg news was unfounded it might be worth betting on the rebound?

careful or you might end up on elon musk`s defecation roster- he doesn`t like that sort of behaviour, or the SEC for that matter..

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45754299

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I suspect an article about this on the register comes pretty close to a conclusion, that after Obama had a meeting, back in 2015, with Jinping in which China said it would no longer turn a blind eye to intellectual property theft from American companies the intelligence community feared they'd be facing budget cuts so discreetly briefed a select group that China had developed a new type of spy chip.

It seems ZTE and Lenovo shares have also fallen due to the story:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45756685