Security Bloomberg Reports China Infiltrated the Supermicro Supply Chain

eva2000 · Oct 5, 2018

Supermicro builds web server solutions so this news concerns alot of folks in web hosting industry both for dedicated and vps hosts that China allegedly has infiltrated Supermicro's supply chain !

STH investigates these claims Bloomberg Reports China Infiltrated the Supermicro Supply Chain We Investigate

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

In that article, Bloomberg reports that the PLA managed to infiltrate Supermicro’s supply chain and add small chips that allowed Chinese agencies to hack into 30 companies such as Apple and Amazon. The company also published, in a different article, statements from Amazon, Apple, and Supermicro strongly rebutting the story. See The Big Hack: Statements From Amazon, Apple, Supermicro, and the Chinese Government. Something is certainly strange here, and at STH, we review more server platforms than anywhere else on the Internet, including those from Supermicro. We also, by chance, started diving into the BMC security space more recently so it is clearly time to investigate.
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eva2000 · Oct 5, 2018

Supermicro reply https://www.supermicro.com/newsroom/pressreleases/2018/press181004_Bloomberg.cfm

SAN JOSE, Calif., October 4, 2018 — Super Micro Computer, Inc. (SMCI), a global leader in enterprise computing, storage, networking solutions and green computing technology, strongly refutes reports that servers it sold to customers contained malicious microchips in the motherboards of those systems.

In an article today, it is alleged that Supermicro motherboards sold to certain customers contained malicious chips on its motherboards in 2015. Supermicro has never found any malicious chips, nor been informed by any customer that such chips have been found.

Each company mentioned in the article (Supermicro, Apple, Amazon and Elemental) has issued strong statements denying the claims:

Apple stated on CNBC, “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 Supermicro server in one of our labs. That one-time event was determined to be accidental and not a targeted attack against Apple."

Steve Schmidt, Chief Information Security Officer at Amazon Web Services stated, "As we shared with Bloomberg BusinessWeek multiple times over the last couple months, at no time, past or present, have we ever found any issues relating to modified hardware or malicious chips in Supermicro motherboards in any Elemental or Amazon systems.‎"

Supermicro has never been contacted by any government agencies either domestic or foreign regarding the alleged claims.

Supermicro takes all security claims very seriously and makes continuous investments in the security capabilities of their products. The manufacture of motherboards in China is not unique to Supermicro and is a standard industry practice. Nearly all systems providers use the same contract manufacturers. Supermicro qualifies and certifies every contract manufacturer and routinely inspects their facilities and processes closely.
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eva2000 · Dec 12, 2018

update Super Micro says external security audit found no evidence of backdoor chips | ZDNet

In a letter sent out today to its customers, hardware vendor Super Micro Computer said that a security audit performed by a third-party investigations firm found no evidence that Supermicro server motherboards contained any type of backdoor chip.

The company sent out this letter after earlier this year a Bloomberg report claimed that some Supermicro motherboards contained a malicious chip implant inserted on its Chinese assembly lines by Chinese spies. The US news outlet then claimed that some of these servers made it into the networks of government agencies and private companies, such as Apple and Amazon's AWS.
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Security Bloomberg Reports China Infiltrated the Supermicro Supply Chain

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