WASHINGTON – Tiny chips inserted in US computer equipment manufactured inChina were used as part of a vast effort by Beijing to steal US technologysecrets, a published report said Thursday.
The Bloomberg News report said the chips, the size of a grain of rice, wereused on equipment made for Amazon, which first alerted US authorities, andApple, and possibly for other companies and government agencies.
Bloomberg said a three-year secret investigation, which remains open,enabled spies to create a “stealth doorway” into computer equipment, ahardware-based entry that would be more effective and harder to detect thana software hack.
Citing unnamed US officials, Bloomberg said a unit of the People’sLiberation Army were involved the operation that placed the chips onequipment manufactured in China for US-based Super Micro Computer Inc.
Supermicro, according to Bloomberg, also manufactured equipment forDepartment of Defense data centers, the CIA’s drone operations, and onboardnetworks of Navy warships.
The report said Amazon discovered the problem when it acquired softwarefirm Elemental and began a security review of equipment made for Elementalby California-based Supermicro.
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According to Bloomberg, the spy chips were designed for motherboards — thenerve centers for computer equipment — used in data centers operated byApple, Amazon Web Services and others.
Apple said in a statement it “has never found malicious chips, ‘hardwaremanipulations’ or vulnerabilities purposely planted in any server.”
A statement by Amazon to AFP said that “at no time, past or present, havewe ever found any issues relating to modified hardware or malicious chipsin Supermicro motherboards in any Elemental or Amazon systems.”
Supermicro could not immediately be reached for comment, but Bloomberg saidthe firm denied any knowledge of the espionage or investigation. – APP/AFP
