Earlier this week, press agency Bloomberg stated that China had secretly placed small chips on Supermicro’s motherboards. This would spy on various American tech companies, including Amazon and Apple. The companies denied the news and now the American secret service, Homeland Security, is putting its money where its mouth is.
Today, Homeland Security responds with the message that the companies are right. It sees no reason to doubt the companies’ statements on espionage. That’s interesting, because Bloomberg says it’s just his message. Whoever is right is and remains the question.
Doubts about the sources
Bloomberg stated, based on more than ten different sources, that the Chinese secret service had had microchips installed on Supermicro’s motherboards. These were motherboards used by American companies such as Amazon and Apple to power their data centers. The chips would send the data processed by the servers to China, which could spy on the companies.
Amazon, Apple, but also Supermicro reacted immediately and very firmly to the news and denied the allegations. But immediately after that, Bloomberg said he was convinced of his sources and said that the news was really true. Homeland Security’s message somewhat reduces this assertion, although even experts are not sure who to believe. Earlier, the British National Cyber Security Center also announced that it sees no reason to doubt the messages from Amazon and Apple.
The fact that Homeland Security reacts is quite unique. Normally the Secret Service does not interfere in such matters and remains aloof.
This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.
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