Bloomberg story to fuel suspicion of China's hardware

Subject

Bloomberg report on Chinese supply chain attack.

Significance

Amazon and Supermicro on October 24 joined Apple in calling on Bloomberg Businessweek to retract its October 4 story about an alleged Chinese supply chain attack on 30 US companies, including Apple and Amazon. Based on evidence provided by 17 anonymous sources from the affected companies and the US government, the story alleged that Chinese agents planted malicious chips in server motherboards manufactured by Supermicro, a major hardware supplier in the United States and globally. Thus far, no one has been able to corroborate Bloomberg's claim, and Bloomberg has provided no further verification itself.

Impacts

• Bloomberg will face pressure to review its reporting standards if it fails to deliver credible evidence for the story.
• The controversy could end in costly libel suits against Bloomberg if it fails to retract or verify its report.
• There are no global norms on cyber or supply chain attacks; no agreement is forthcoming.