Supermicro to further investigate Chinese espionage chips on their hardware
Click here to post a comment for Supermicro to further investigate Chinese espionage chips on their hardware on our message forum
Fox2232
Last sentence is worded wrongly: "Bloomberg should pull it back."
No proof article like this from company which is trusted by so many = malicious intent.
Wording should have been: "Bloomberg should be put down."
Because they apparently misused power they did not deserve. 0 responsibility = 0 right to have power.
Kaarme
On the other hand, there's no way any of those companies would confess to having possessed compromised hardware even if they did, unless they got caught pants down by officials. It would be a nightmare to try to figure out what sort of information might have leaked and how many people would be affected. Far easier to deny everything since nobody can prove anything. I don't trust Bloomberg, which seems to have gone suspiciously silent to boot, but the world would need to be ending before I trusted the likes of Apple.
Brit90
The fact that the shares dropped from $21 to $12 because of this story which has lost a lot of its credibility, means Bloomberg upon being proved malicious intent, which it is. Should be paying Supermicro lots of money for compensation.
This is a scaremonger story to stop production of certain products so other people can benefit, and until real proof comes out, this is a fairytale bloomberg story.
Backstabak
It is true that Supermicro have every reason to say they are fine. This can be easily solved however, as all the Bloomberg needs to do is provide a board from them with malicious chip on. What are they waiting for ? Even though even if all of this was a hoax, I can't imagine Bloomberg never considered they would need to support their claim with some sort of proof. So, maybe we just need to wait a bit.
Humanoid_1
Yeah really odd they would run such a Firm story without a board in hand. Cannot be so hard to lay hands on one...
on the other hand I can believe the US Gov. would pressure Apple and Amazon to cover this up to help protect US interests (SuperMicro and jobs + saving face publicly to the world) while they have already apparently removed the threat.
It could be the coverup Bloomberg are claiming...
fantaskarsef
This turn of the story tackles the journalistic issue here, claims that (yet) have not been proved true, or false for that matter. If it'd be political, the whole thing might as well have been called fake news at some point.
That said, I'm not sure if Supermicro is the only company that should do their checks. If they're infiltrated, they'd just say everything's as normal... I'd trust the answers of the biggest users, Amazon, Apple, etc. more than just the company's words who's meant to be compromised in the first place.
Denial
tunejunky
1) when a news organization has 17 sources and corroboration from two gov'ts (U.K. & U.S.)
and does not "show the evidence", it is not from a lack of evidence, it's from national security.
2) the Pentagon (esp DARPA), has been aware of the problem of offshore manufacturing and the guaranteed penetration by state actors ever since businesses started going to China.
3) other than the technical aspects of this story, anybody who doesn't believe China has spies in every manufacturing plant is both foolish and naive and they've never been to China.
4) Supermicro is doing precisely the right thing - put on a brave face, deny everything but investigate thoroughly.
WareTernal
tunejunky
in every newspaper or news program of any repute three independent sources are required.
whistle-blowing in particular, often means anonymity because of the power differential between a person and a group/company/corporation/nation.
when you add in the known behavior of Chinese industrial and military espionage, costing billions of dollars in Intellectual Property to leapfrog from second world status to first, why is anyone surprised at anything?
i've only said i wasn't surprised by the Bloomberg story as it is entirely credible if you've ever been to China. i've been to China and Hong Kong many times, as in more than 10. and the strong-arm tactics of the gov't re: business and IP is well known and a company is forced to transfer some technology in order to be there in the first place. whether you're General Motors, Supermicro, Apple, et al... or not.
this alleged event wasn't for that technology transfer - they have that, it was to target the end user. totalitarian states are totalitarian, so "free discourse/data/information" is antithetical to the state. the Chinese are already the most surveilled people on the face of the earth (as are the visitors there...if you look you can find the minders). why the surprise they want to gather every bit of information that they can?
Humanoid_1
tunejunky
Koniakki
With my specially made shiny and secure hat on, I would say IF this story turns to have any truth in it and indeed SMC was infiltrated, I bet it is specific server board batches, intended for specific servers that they were interested in, would be my guess.
That's why it could be hard to confirm its existence, since it might be only some specific boards that might or might not be affected, if the story holds some truth in it of course.
sykozis
fantaskarsef
sykozis
fry178
So why hasnt supermicro provided a bluprint/schematic of the board next to a picture?
We wouldnt even need to see any info/nam/model nbrs of components/chips, but it would be easy to visually compare it and see if there is anything that shouldn't be there.
Yet they havent...
sykozis
Clouseau
This just stinks of government meddling. Huawei is no longer backed by the large carriers here in the US. AT&T was pressured to back off from supplying the new Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro. DOD is scrambling for a replacement since GloFo pulled out of the 7nm race. Feels like we have entered into another McCarthy Era. Instead of just general Communist infiltration, a specific country has been called out. Justified or not, just feels like this is the road being traveled down...again.
Astyanax
It's time for all accused to jointly submit legal preceedings againsts Bloomberg
This stinks like a government covert smear campaign against asian suppliers, and they have left bloomberg to the wolves.
I have already checked with a qualified board engineer that should a chip of that size be placed where they claim, it would have no capacity to do what bloomberg is claiming.
modifying the trace layers to implement an attack vector to route this chip on would not go by unnoticed.