Author: Stephen Johnson / Source: Big Think
- A 2015 security test of a server sold by an American company found that someone in the supply chain had successfully embedded a tiny microchip on a motherboard.
- The company that manufactured the compromised motherboard provides servers to hundreds of international clients, including NASA and the Department of Homeland Security.
- U.S. officials linked the hardware attack to a People’s Liberation Army unit, though it’s unclear what, if anything, hackers have done or to what they have access.
The Chinese military was able to implant tiny malicious microchips on servers that made their way into data centers used by nearly 30 American companies, including Amazon and Apple, according to a new report from Bloomberg.
It’s a wide-reaching and potentially ongoing attack that likely gave Chinese actors unprecedented access to sensitive data belonging to American companies, consumers, government agencies and one major bank.
The Bloomberg report describes how, in 2015, Amazon Web Services had approached a startup called Elemental Technologies to help with the expansion of its streaming video service, Amazon Prime Video. During a security test of the servers Elemental Technology sold as part of its video-compression product line, testers discovered a rice-grain-sized microchip implanted inconspicuously on one of the server’s motherboards. The microchip wasn’t part of the original hardware design, so its existence could only mean one thing: Someone at some point in the supply chain had surreptitiously embedded the chip.
Americans officials, some of whom had already heard whispers of China’s plans to sabotage motherboards headed for the U.S., opened a top-secret and ongoing probe.
Hardware vs. software attacks
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