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No Chinese spy chips found in Supermicro internal investigation

The reported tiny Chinese spy chip in question was smaller than a pencil tip. (Source: Debuglies via Bloomberg)
The reported tiny Chinese spy chip in question was smaller than a pencil tip. (Source: Debuglies via Bloomberg)
Supermicro has published a letter to its customers to explicitly state that no evidence of tampering was discovered in its hardware during a recent thorough internal review. An article from Bloomberg claimed that Supermicro products had been compromised by Chinese spy chips, which had then affected servers used by companies like Amazon and Apple.

A letter published online by Supermicro has stated that no spy chips were discovered during an investigation of the company’s products. The review was carried out after an explosive article published by Bloomberg made the allegation that Chinese spy agencies had managed to place tiny microchips on Supermicro server motherboards.  

So far, many of the actors involved in the supposed scandal have thoroughly denied the existence of any espionage-related malware. Apple and Amazon have refuted the comments made in the Bloomberg article, while government bodies in the US and UK have also stated that there is no firm evidence of these companies being infiltrated by Chinese spy equipment. The Supermicro letter is quite bullish in its report of the third-party investigation’s results:

These findings were no surprise for us. As we have stated repeatedly, our process is designed to protect the integrity and reliability of our products.

Apparently, the investigation centered on examining a representative sample of Supermicro’s hardware, which included the specific type of motherboards that were mentioned in Bloomberg’s fiery exposé. With yet another door closed on the subject, it seems the media outlet will need to provide more concrete evidence and name sources before any further investigations are carried out by the parties involved.

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2018 12 > No Chinese spy chips found in Supermicro internal investigation
Daniel R Deakin, 2018-12-11 (Update: 2018-12-11)