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US Tech Firms Fear China Could Be Spying On Them Using Power Cords, Report Says (cnbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Fearing that China could be spying on them using power cords and plugs, several U.S. technology companies have asked their Taiwanese suppliers to shift production of some components out of the mainland, Nikkei Asian Review reported on Friday. The report cited unnamed executives from two Taiwanese companies: Lite-On Technology, a manufacturer of electronic parts, and Quanta Computer, a supplier of servers and data centers. Lite-On's clients include Dell EMC, Hewlett-Packard and IBM, while Quanta counts Google and Facebook among its customers, according to Nikkei. The executives told Nikkei that some of their American clients -- without specifying which companies -- asked them to move out of China partly because of cyberespionage and cybersecurity risks. The U.S. tech firms were worried that even mundane components such as power plugs could be tapped by Beijing to access sensitive data, according to the report. According to the report, Lite-On Technology is building a new factory in Taiwan to manufacture power components for servers due to China's cybersecurity concerns. Quanta has also shifted production out of mainland China to Taiwan due to similar concerns, as well as additional tariffs imposed by Washington as a result of the U.S.-China trade war.
Apparently, these US companies have nobody left that understands technology. Such an attack would be both ineffective and far, far more expensive than other possibilities. Requires some minimal actual knowledge of IT security to see that though, but all these people seem to have is irrational fear.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
So, if you want to be paranoid, you have to ban everything made in China.
Why China? China is only suspected of using consumer electronics to spy whereas we actually know for certain that the US government has been using consumer electronics to spy on people.
The difference is that you don't buy an office heater, fan, or desk lamp *with a server*. The scale of an operation to capture significant valuable information via desk lamps would have to be orders of magnitude larger.
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This is the proper level of "paranoia" required to keep data secret! However, US tech companies should also be having the realization that they need to stop selling/enabling insecure products because the buyers may end up being their workers. Hack a worker's wireless printer via internet (easy), move laterally via bluetooth to their smartphone (outdated and insecure) and you have a remote surveillance device in your "secure" workplace. Each step of insecurity brought to you by good ol' US tech companies.
There is so much insecurable crap in computers and products that it's going to be a monumental task to actually secure companies. Sure hope PS/2 keyboards and mice are coming back into fashion because USB is a security nightmare.
You reap what you sow, US tech companies!
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Cause: a result of an underlying belief that other people are hostile [and long time spying on others] in combination with a lack in self-awareness
China is the number one thief of IP while the US is the number two thief of IP. The later fact does not negate the former.
It's not wrong for them to be concerned. Sure, it's hypocritical but it's not wrong.
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... from the same "reliable" sources that still owe us a presentation of the spy-chips on the SuperMicro boards?