Super Micro Trojan Compromises The Servers Of Tech Giants Apple And Amazon
Updated on October 11, 2022, by Xcitium
The Chinese cyber spies have infected the servers used by over 30 US companies that includes Amazon, Apple and even government contractors as per the Bloomberg Business week.
The armed forces of China are forcing the manufacturers to insert micro-chips into US-designed servers. The chips were not bigger than a rice grain, however it is capable to undermine the capability of the hardware that has been installed, creating a backdoor for the malicious code like Trojan horse to enter or even draw off data.
The IT security experts of Apple and Amazon have confirmed that they have identified the attack process by performing internal validation and have reported on the same to US authorities. Bloomberg Businessweek reveals that there is no proper authentication that the confidential business’ and customer’s data were stolen, However, both the organizations have removed the infected servers from the infrastructure.
Reports says both the Amazon and Apple have strongly denied that their servers were compromised by the Chinese hackers. Amazon claims it is “untrue” that it already knew that “servers containing malicious chips or modifications in data centers based in China,” that it worked with the FBI to examine or provide information on the malware infected hardware. Apple is on the hand is equally certain on the same – claims the Bloomberg reports. “On this we can be very clear: Apple has never found malicious chips, ‘hardware manipulations’ or vulnerabilities purposely planted in any server.”
The attack was was performed through a US-base company Super Micro Computer Inc, most popularly known as SuperMicro. SuperMicro is known to be the largest supplier of motherboards which outsources the manufacturing of the motherboard to factories based out in China.
The motherboards manufactured by supermicros are used worldwide as a part of weapon systems, MRI machines, other specialist products and for datacenters that are used by companies that involve manufacturing of technology. The company is involved in manufacturing servers for many tech-based companies that also included Elemental Technologies which is a small start up focussing in compressing videos which was later acquired by Amazon in 2015.
A former official who is a part of the US intelligence team states “Think of Supermicro as the Microsoft of the hardware world,” Adding to it he also says “Attacking Supermicro motherboards is like attacking Windows. It’s like attacking the whole world.”
As per the Bloomberg reports, the Chinese miltary targets Elemental through Supermicro – as the servers manufactured by Elemental could be found in Data centres of the Department of Defense, Drone operation of the CIA and the Navy warships’ networks and thousands to add to the list.
Some Of The Bloomberg Stories Revealed That
- Apple did separate its partnership with Supermicro in 2016, however the company stated that the reason behind it was a minor security incident.
- Amazon sold it’s Chinese infrastructure to its opponent to deny Supermicro’s compromised servers. The tech giant also confessed on the findings of vulnerabilites in the supermicro’s software products.
- Facebook, found issues with Supermicro’s products and therefore removed the servers from the data centres.
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