Bloomberg reported last week that Amazon, Apple, and other companies had installed hardware from Super Micro Computing Inc. that had tiny spy chips built in during assembly in China. Amazon and Apple denied they had done so. However, a new story from Bloomberg adds additional detail and supporting evidence. From Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley at bloomberg.com:
A major U.S. telecommunications company discovered manipulated hardware from Super Micro Computer Inc. in its network and removed it in August, fresh evidence of tampering in China of critical technology components bound for the U.S., according to a security expert working for the telecom company.
The security expert, Yossi Appleboum, provided documents, analysis and other evidence of the discovery following the publication of an investigative report in Bloomberg Businessweek that detailed how China’s intelligence services had ordered subcontractors to plant malicious chips in Supermicro server motherboards over a two-year period ending in 2015.
