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In an Unprecedented Move, Apple CEO Tim Cook Calls For Bloomberg To Retract Its Chinese Spy Chip Story (buzzfeednews.com)
John Paczkowski and Joseph Bernstein, reporting for BuzzFeed News: Apple CEO Tim Cook, in an interview with BuzzFeed News, went on the record for the first time to deny allegations that the company was the victim of a hardware-based attack carried out by the Chinese government. And, in an unprecedented move for the company, he called for a retraction of the story that made this claim. Earlier this month Bloomberg Businessweek published an investigation alleging Chinese spies had compromised some 30 US companies by implanting malicious chips into Silicon Valley bound servers during their manufacture in China. The chips, Bloomberg reported, allowed the attackers to create "a stealth doorway" into any network running on a server in which they were embedded. Apple was alleged to be among the companies attacked, and a focal point of the story. [...] "We turned the company upside down," Cook said. "Email searches, datacenter records, financial records, shipment records. We really forensically whipped through the company to dig very deep and each time we came back to the same conclusion: This did not happen. There's no truth to this." A Bloomberg spokesperson said, "We stand by our story and are confident in our reporting and sources."
Yeah it smells like an NSA letter is driving his comments more than he's disproving the possibility of the claim.
I was reading in Ars Technica an article about Russian spies hacking athlete's doping test results. In the comment section someone I suspect to be a Russian troll was expressing mild outrage at the fact that Ars ran an article on that subject but hadn't yet mentioned anything about the Chinese chip hacking conspiracy, linking to the Bloomberg article. Both the quasi-science-fiction Bloomberg article allegations and the circumstances that led me to read it make me suspicious that it is probably fabricated. I don't think that Bloomberg journalists lied, but I consider it likely that they were fed false information that ended up in that article.
I got this email from Corvalent's mailing list (Corvalent is an industrial/embedded manufacturer). Had some of their insight into the whole ordeal which i found interesting.
What is Corvalent’s Insight on Hardware Hacking?
“It is our technical opinion that modifications of hardware, firmware and/or software are all possible ways to interfere with the normal operation of boards. Each of them has advantages and disadvantages, including technical complexity, ease of detection, and cost of implementation,” said Martin Rudloff, Corvalent’s CTO. “Typically this means that for someone to deploy an attack of the scope reported by Bloomberg in its Super Micro feature, the target must be specific and worthwhile in order to justify the high cost involved. Targeting only one or a few major companies would also minimize the risk of discovery.”
“Without deeper knowledge of the hardware and the software running on a server, information gathered from it may not allow a thief to decode or understand what the data means. And without knowing the end users’ security measures, we find it unlikely that the information could be forwarded to an external recipient,” added Rudloff.
Curiosity kicked in when we were discussing the level of difficulty in modifying the RJ45, so we decided to open one and check it out firsthand. As you can see below, it is very hard to open the metal enclosure without damaging it. The interior is fully packed, leaving little space to add additional circuitry. A fully assembled modified unit would probably be a better choice, but would involve the highly sophisticated effort of tapping into the supply chain and replacing the original parts with counterfeits.
Should we Question Such a Significant Story?
Bloomberg is a trusted new source with impeccable standards for truth and accuracy in reporting. Even so, it is possible that the story is incorrect. Sources provided data they understood to be accurate and truthful based on reports seen by them only; however, these were not shared with Bloomberg directly. There are technical inconsistencies to consider as well.
It should be possible to detect oddities in network traffic coming from a BMC behaving in unexpected ways. Alterations to the kernel and software stack should also set off alarms during or after system boot.
The chip pictured in the Bloomberg story fits on the tip of a pencil, yet it purportedly holds enough data to replace the data extracted from the BMC, alter the existing OS, and implement backdoor system access. This means the chip must either be larger than pictured or is using new lithography.
Why go to the trouble of placing a new chip on the board instead of a backdoor version of one already certified as part of the design?
Strong and specific denials by Amazon and Apple – different from the usual ‘we do not discuss issues of security as a matter of policy’– further stress the story’s validity.