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Audit backs Apple's denial of Chinese spy chips in servers
If there have been any Chinese spy chips on Super Micro servers, they haven't been easy to find. The company has told customers that an independent audit has found no evidence of malicious hardware on its current motherboards as well as those from the generation sold to Amazon and Apple (and thus the heart of the Bloomberg claims that sparked the concern). There was also no evidence of unapproved designs or rogue software, the auditors said.
US intelligence chief says 'no evidence' of Chinese spy chips
Dan Coats, the US director of national intelligence, said there's "no evidence" that Chinese spies tampered with servers bought by up to 30 companies, including the likes of Apple and a telecom provider, as Bloomberg reported earlier this month. However, he told Cyberscoop that "we're not taking anything for granted. We haven't seen anything, but we're always watching."
Apple CEO calls on Bloomberg to retract China surveillance report
Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that San Jose-based server company Super Micro installed surveillance micro-chips in the Chinese data center hardware of up to 30 companies, including Amazon and Apple. These chips were supposedly used to steal intellectual property. However, all companies that were named in the initial report have denied Bloomberg's claims. Now, Apple CEO Tim Cook is calling on the well-reputed publication to retract its story altogether, according to BuzzFeed News.
Senators demand answers over Chinese 'spy chip' fears (updated)
Apple may have tried to reassure Congress that there's no evidence of China tampering with servers to spy on data traffic, but it didn't do much to quell doubts. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Marco Rubio have sent a letter to Super Micro demanding answers around allegations of Chinese spy chips. The duo wants to know if Super Micro has monitored and investigated its supply chain for signs of tampering, and is particularly interested in February 2017 statements to The Information that it had independent auditors look over its "process" and make changes following Apple's claims of security holes. If Super Micro conducted an investigation, the senators asked, what were the results?
Apple told Congress it found no evidence of server tampering
In a letter to Congress, Apple reiterated that it found no evidence of microchip-based server tampering by Chinese agents that was reported by Bloomberg Businessweek. The company, along with Amazon and server manufacturer Super Micro, had previously released forceful denials of suspicions that its servers contained malicious components. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and UK cybersecurity officials had also chimed in, saying they have no reason to doubt Amazon and Apple's denials.
Supermicro and Fusion-io team up to deliver new SuperServers
Fusion-io's been in the flash memory game for some time, but until now it has been known primarily for screamingly fast PCI Express-mounted flash storage solutions with wallet-crushing prices. Those drives are primarily aimed at the enterprise market, so it seems logical for the company to now enter into an OEM agreement with Supermicro to make NAND Flash servers. The aptly, if not modestly, named SuperServers can perform over 2.2 million sequential I/O operations per second (IOPS) and over 1.4 million random IOPS -- for comparison, the OCZ SSDs we saw at CES are an order of magnitude slower in IOPS, and they aren't exactly sluggish. Supermicro also claims that the new servers speed up enterprise applications by ten times while using only one-tenth of the power. Impressive numbers to be sure, but we shudder to think of how much the SuperServers will cost. A second mortgage for a server's a sound financial decision, right? PR's after the break.
