Nearly 30 US Companies Including Apple and Amazon Infiltrated by Chinese Hackers

• Chinese Spies have broken into the supply chain for servers used by 30 US companies.
• The list of companies affected includes Amazon, Apple, and even government contractors.
• The details of the infiltration were revealed by Bloomberg Businessweek.

Bloomberg Businessweek recently reported one of the most audacious hardware hacking a nation has ever pulled off. The supply chain of servers used by almost 30 companies which include companies like Amazon and Apple, as well as US government contractors, have been infiltrated with hardware chips by Chinese hackers.

Bloomberg revealed that Chinese armed forces had forced manufacturers in the country to insert microchips in US-designed servers. The chips are said to be of the same size as a grain of rice, and they are capable of stealing data and also injecting malicious code.

Amazon and Apple have already discovered the hack through their own investigations, and US authorities have been notified. So far, any information on users’ data being stolen or tampered with has not been released and companies have already removed the compromised servers.

Both Amazon and Apple have claimed that the story is not true. Apple stated that they did not find any malicious chips or hardware manipulations on their servers while Amazon denied the same and stated they did not work with the FBI to investigate any such incident.

The attack was made possible with factories owned by Super Micro Computer Inc. (commonly known as Supermicro) being influenced by the Chinese military. Supermicro is one of the largest server motherboard manufacturers in the world, and their products are used all over the world including MRI machines, datacenters, and even weapon systems.

While Amazon and Apple claim that there have been no such incidents with their servers, Apple ended its relationship with Supermicro two years back, and they revealed back then that it was due to a security incident. Amazon had distanced itself from the manufacturer as well. Both of the above factors give more credibility to Bloomberg’s claims while none of the affected companies have chosen not to confirm the report’s claims yet.

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