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Amazon Has Pulled Ads From Bloomberg Over Controversial 'Big Hack' Chinese Spy Story; Apple Has Not Invited Outlet's Reporters To a Product Event Next Week (buzzfeednews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the no-hard-feelings dept.

Both Amazon and Apple are taking retributive measures against Bloomberg, which in a report earlier this month alleged that some motherboards used by these companies were hacked by China. From a report: Amazon pulled its fourth quarter advertisements on Bloomberg's website, a move some within the media giant think is retribution for its controversial story alleging that Chinese spies hacked into the online retailer's servers. According to a source in position to know, Amazon's digital media buyer, Initiative, informed Bloomberg's sales staff on October 16 that it would cancel its ad buys for the fourth quarter due to budget cuts. Internally, the source said, the staff received that decision, made only eight days after a previous communication with Initiative confirming that the ads would run, as a direct response to Amazon's displeasure over the October 4 story. (Amazon announced Thursday that its marketing expenses for Q3 2018 were 3.3 billion dollars, up more than 800 million dollars from the year before.) [...] According to multiple sources, Bloomberg was not invited to Apple's fall product event next week in Brooklyn. Further reading: In an Unprecedented Move, Apple CEO Tim Cook Calls For Bloomberg To Retract Its Chinese Spy Chip Story.

9 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. But no lawsuit.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They don't want to go through discovery, they just want to bury the news.

    1. Re:But no lawsuit.... by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It would be difficult to actually succeed with a lawsuit, as they would first have to demonstrate that they've suffered some material harm from this. Realistically, if anyone had a chance of doing that, it would be Super Micro as opposed to Apple or Amazon. Neither Apple or Amazon have seen their stock fluctuate wildly enough that it would be easy to point to this story as the only (or even primary) cause. Super Micro on the other hand had their price drop to about half of what it was prior to the announcement.

      I think companies are also a little reluctant to sue mainstream press, even when they think they've been hit with a hatchet job. Like any group, the press don't like attacks against their own from outside. They might call each other left/right wing mouthpieces, but they'll put that aside if anyone starts going after the freedom of the press as a whole. A big company is better off just dragging the news agencies name through the mud. The competing news agencies won't mind too much (or might even join in) and a lawsuit is going to be difficult to win and cost the company more than they get.

    2. Re:But no lawsuit.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're accusing Bloomberg planting a pro-Trump hatchet job against Apple and "the Chinese"?
      You're accusing a highly-reputable business news company of planting a political hatchet job that doesn't mention politics?
      Most absurdly, you're accusing a magazine owned by Leftist politician Michael Bloomberg of running PRO-TRUMP stories?!

      There's something wrong with you.

    3. Re:But no lawsuit.... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's a perfect, and reasonable, explanation.

      I agree - there's no place for that sort of thing on Slashdot.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
  2. This story was reported widely in Feb of 2017 by supercell · · Score: 5, Informative
    This Supermicro server/security story was reported in 2017, although focused on Apple (said others were impacted, no specific mention of Amazon), since it was not highly profiled by Bloomberg Business News, it was not widely noticed.

    Feb 2017
    https://appleinsider.com/artic...
    https://www.macrumors.com/2017...
    https://arstechnica.com/civis/...

    Their claims that they knew nothing of this security issue from Supermicro has all the appererances of a PR cover up

    1. Re:This story was reported widely in Feb of 2017 by Junta · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, *that* was a problem of failing to provide adequate protection of their servers and download site from fake firmware. From all reports, this was enough to scare Apple off as a customer, but didn't actually get anywhere to have a chance to actually infiltrate anything. This is a class of attack that can be mitigated, and it is correct to select a different vendor for having better security practices to prevent an external attacker that has no business relationship with the supplier from getting in.

      Bloomberg's accusation is that there was a *hardware* attack where a chip was injected and that the attack actually landed and spent a significant time having compromised the datacenters.

      This is a whole different implication:
      -An entity with a business relationship vetted by the supplier would have been the one to execute, suggesting the supplier is at best inadequate in vetting their partners and at worst (and the bloomberg *heavily* hints it this in mildly racist ways) complicit in the attack.
      -Such an attack landed successfully for a significant duration.

      As a few have pointed out, the far safer bet would be a firmware attack, as with the alleged approach it would be far more expensive, less likely to hit, and upon detection has no plausible deniability. The artcile smells fishy, and no other investigation can find a hint of anything to corroborate the claims.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  3. More recent research by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Informative

    The thing is, just recently LOTS of news orgs, and the government itself could find no evidence of what was reported - and both Apple and Amazon did not just give PR responses, but much stronger responses that would lead to large fines if they were lying.

    Since everyone else on Earth is unable to verify the story, it's far more likely Bloomburg really screwed up.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  4. Show me the data by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If SuperMicro is guilty of this, then all Bloomberg has to do is go online, but some boards and pay MIT or some other school with the facilities to find the malicious chips. That seems pretty logical right?

    If the chips actually exist, they should be pretty easy to identify. Just cross reference the chips and the drivers and verify what is OEM, Chinese or otherwise and then reverse engineer them and simulate the hack.

    This is not a difficult thing to do.

    I know of a NATO government organization that has pulled the power from a stack of Nutanix servers because of this article. I asked them to prove to me that the story had any merit other than FUD and they explained that they pulled the plug because they need proof there is no merit not the other way around.

    I think SuperMicro should sue the shit out of Bloomberg over this. So should Nutanix and every other company financially effected by this article. Then Bloomberg will be forced to either prove their claims ... at which point we can all apologize and thank them or they can suffer the hundreds of millions in losses over publishing this rubbish.

  5. Re:Kohath you're a fucking moron lol. by Kohath · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's almost certainly not intentionally false and provably motivated by malice. If the story is merely false, it isn't (legally) libel.