China allegedly infiltrated the supply chain of hardware giant Supermicro, implanting tiny, almost undetectable chips onto server motherboards. These chips, no larger than a grain of rice, were designed to create a stealth doorway into any network the altered machines were connected to. Supermicro’s motherboards are used globally by leading tech firms and government contractors, including Apple and Amazon, making the scale of the potential breach vast.
Apple and Amazon both discovered and reported the chips in 2015, leading to a top-secret US government investigation. While both companies vehemently deny the Bloomberg report, the implications are significant. If true, China’s hardware hack could represent a significant shift in its cyber warfare strategy, from software-based attacks to tampering with hardware at the production stage.
Despite the severity of the allegations, the real-world impact remains unclear. No consumer data is known to have been accessed, and both Apple and Amazon claim to have found no evidence of data theft. However, the incident raises serious questions about the security of the global tech supply chain.
Go to source article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how-china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies