Apple CEO Tim Cook calls on Bloomberg to retract its Chinese spy story

(credit: Wikipedia)

Apple CEO Tim Cook is calling on Bloomberg Business to retract a story that said his company was the victim of a hardware-based attack carried out by the Chinese government. It's the first time Apple has ever publicly demanded a retraction, according to BuzzFeed.

Since Bloomberg published the exclusive article 15 days ago, a gaggle of companies, well-placed government officials, and security researchers have publicly challenged its accuracy. Apple and Amazon have said they have no knowledge of ever finding or removing servers that contained the kind of spy chips Bloomberg alleged were found in the companies' networks. Supermicro has also denied knowing anything about malicious chips being secretly implanted into any of its motherboards during the manufacturing process, as Bloomberg reported.

Meanwhile, an official from the US Department of Homeland Security has said he has no reason to doubt the Apple and Amazon denials, and a top official with the National Security Agency has said the vast resources at his disposal have been unable to confirm the report. As Ars reported last week, hardware experts, including two who were contacted by Bloomberg when reporting the story, said the kind of chip-based backdoors alleged by Bloomberg are extremely complex, particularly when introduced in the supply chain. They said state-sponsored attackers likely would prefer to exploit the numerous firmware vulnerabilities that affect motherboards from Supermicro and other makers.

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