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Audit: No Chinese surveillance implants in Supermicro boards found
In a letter to customers issued December 11, Supermicro President and CEO Charles Liang and other top executives announced that an audit conducted by an outside investigating team had found no evidence of any malicious hardware incorporated into motherboards currently or previously manufactured by the company. The letter is the latest rebuttal to Bloomberg reports in October that claimed tiny chips that provided a backdoor for China's intelligence agencies had been integrated into boards provided to major Internet and cloud providers—a report also refuted by the companies the report claimed were targeted.
"After a thorough examination and a range of functional tests, the investigative firm found absolutely no evidence of malicious hardware on our motherboards," the letter signed by Liang, Supermicro Senior Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer David Weigland, and Senior VP and Chief Product Officer Raju Penumatcha stated.
Searching for site:soylentnews.org supermicro on Google brought up a Supermicro ad linking the CEO letter, with the link entitled "Supermicro Independent Testing | No Malicious Hardware". Do you believe them?
Previously: Chinese Spy Chips Allegedly Inserted Into Amazon, Apple, etc. Datacenters by Super Micro
Bloomberg Stands by Chinese Chip Story as Apple, Amazon Ratchet up Denials
Bloomberg Claims That a Major U.S. Telecom Operated a Server Backdoored by a Hidden Chip
Related: Apple Deleted Server Supplier After Finding Infected Firmware in Servers
Firmware Vulnerabilities in Supermicro Systems
Supermicro Announces Suspension of Trading of Common Stock on Nasdaq and its Intention to Appeal
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday December 13 2018, @07:49AM
That said I don't find the accusation at all incredible. China is the world's number 2 power and the number 1 has been metaphorically shoveling sand in their face for several years. They were a little sensitive before the teasing started and they're positively riled now - so much so that they've essentially undone all the liberalization since shortly after Mao died, and crowned the new ruler a virtual Emperor yet again.
Emperor Xi, aka Winnie the Poo, is a very dangerous man.
So this is one of those smells true even if it isn't sort of accusations. Quite safe to make, as a result. Is it true or not is another story.
My own gut response is yes, it's probably more or less true. I doubt they went to much extra expense to make sure this would work, but yeah, especially anything manufactured post Xi should be considered rooted from the factory.
Context - so should anything manufactured in the US, and starting several years earlier. :(
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?