Apple and Amazon have denied a recent Bloomberg report which stated that their systems contained malicious computer chips inserted by Chinese intelligence.
This Bloomberg story about China's spy chips will sound familiar to readers of @peterwsinger's 2015 novel "Ghost Fleet," in which infected microchips hidden in U.S. systems such as fighter jets are crippled all at once https://t.co/Kq6TIYEi6c
— Drew Harwell (@drewharwell) October 4, 2018
Bloomberg Businessweek cited 17 unnamed sources with knowledge of a huge “supply chain attack” conducted by China that affected around 30 companies, as well as multiple US government agencies.
According to Bloomberg’s report, malicious chips as small as a sharpened pencil tip were planted by a unit of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. It claims these chips allowed Beijing to gain access to the supply chain of a firm called Supermicro, known as the “Microsoft of the hardware world.”
Amazon has clarified: “We’ve found no evidence to support claims of malicious chips or hardware modifications.”
Apple said it had refuted “virtually every aspect” of the story in on-record responses to Bloomberg: “Apple has never found malicious chips, ‘hardware manipulations’ or vulnerabilities purposely planted in any server.”
