Supermicro says Chinese spy chip is implausible, Apple calls for retraction

Posted on Tuesday, October 23 2018 @ 10:35 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
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The Bloomberg story about Chinese spy chips in Supermicro servers is still causing a lot of controversy. Late last week, Supermicro CEO Charlies Liang, SVP and Chief Compliance Office David Weigand, and SVP and Chief Product Officer Raju Penumatcha tried to address the concerns by publishing an open letter on the company's website.

The executives say they're confident that the Bloomberg article is wrong, and that they have no knowledge of any malicious hardware chip that got implanted during the manufacturing process of their motherboards.

Furthermore, the letter states it's practically impossible to insert a functional, unauthorized component on a motherboard. Supermicro believes this would be caught by checks in the manufacturing and assembly process, and doubts whether an unauthorized hardware component would function properly as a third party would lack complete pin-to-pin knowledge of the design. Supermicro explains that no single employee, team, or contractor has unrestricted access to the full hardware, software, and firmware design of its motherboards.

On a related note, Apple CEO Tim Cook told BuzzFeed that he feels that Bloomberg should retract their story because there is no truth in the story about Apple. The site says this is a rare move from Apple, as it's the first time the company has publicly called for a retraction of a news story:
“There is no truth in their story about Apple,” Cook told BuzzFeed News in a phone interview. "They need to do the right thing and retract it."

This is an extraordinary statement from Cook and Apple. The company has never previously publicly (though it may have done so privately) called for the retraction of a news story — even in cases where the stories have had major errors or were demonstratively false, such as a This American Life episode that was shown to be fabricated.
“There is no truth in their story about Apple,” Cook told BuzzFeed News in a phone interview. "They need to do the right thing and retract it."
Bloomberg on the other hand continues to defends its story, stating it has seventeen individual sources that confirmed the manipulation of hardware and other elements of the attacks.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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