Chinese spy chips are said to be found in hardware used by Apple, Amazon; Apple denies the Bloomberg report
Data center equipment run by Amazon Web Services (AWS) AMZN and Apple AAPL may have been subject to surveillance from the China government via a tiny microchip inserted during the equipment manufacturing process, according to a Bloomberg BusinessWeek report on Thursday .
The chips, which have been the subject of a top secret United States government investigation, according to the report, were used for gathering intellectual property and trade secrets from U.S. companies, and may have been introduced by a Chinese server company called Super Micro that assembled machines used in the centers.
Apple, AWS and Super Micro have disputed the report, with Apple saying it did not find the chips as asserted by BusinessWeek — which cites several anonymous government and corporate sources. Super Micro reportedly said it did not introduce the chips during the manufacturing process, as alleged. The companies did not immediately respond to follow-up requests for comment by CNBC.
Apple has issued strong denials of the report, stating: "We are deeply disappointed that in their dealings with us, Bloomberg's reporters have not been open to the possibility that they or their sources might be wrong or misinformed. Our best guess is that they are confusing their story with a previously reported 2016 incident in which we discovered an infected driver on a single Super Micro server in one of our labs. That one-time event was determined to be accidental and not a targeted attack against Apple."
According to the report, the problem was discovered in 2015 and confirmed by independent security investigators hired by the cloud providers. A follow-up investigation involving several government agencies was conducted, as well. No consumer data was stolen as part of the alleged campaign, according to the report.
China has long been suspected — but rarely directly implicated — in en masse spy campaigns based on hardware made there. The majority of electronic components used in U.S. technology are manufactured in China. Companies including component manufacturers Huawei and ZTE, as well as surveillance camera-maker Hikvision, have all fallen under intense suspicion and scrutiny from the U.S. government in the past year.
Intellectual property theft is one of the core arguments for tough trade restrictions on China by the Trump administration.
Read the complete Bloomberg BusinessWeek report here.
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