Apple Tells Congress 'Nothing Was Ever Found' to Suggest Alleged Supply Chain-Based Hack

Apple's top security chief told the U.S. Congress on Sunday that it had found no indication of suspicious transmissions or other evidence that its China supply chain was ever compromised (via Reuters).

the big hack bloomberg
In a letter to the Senate and House commerce committees, Apple Vice President for Information Security George Stathakopoulos wrote that the company had repeatedly investigated and found no evidence to support Bloomberg Businessweek's bombshell report that alleged tiny chips were discovered inside Apple servers which allowed for backdoor transmissions to Chinese spies.

"Apple's proprietary security tools are continuously scanning for precisely this kind of outbound traffic, as it indicates the existence of malware or other malicious activity. Nothing was ever found," he wrote in the letter provided to Reuters.

Stathakopoulos repeated Apple's statements to the press that it had never found any such planted chips or been contacted by the FBI over the alleged matter. The letter follows a statement issued on Saturday by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security saying it had no reason to doubt the companies who denied that they had ever discovered the tiny chips.

Apple, Amazon, and Supermicro all strongly rebutted the report, which alleged that Chinese intelligence planted microchips in Supermicro servers, which Apple and Amazon previously used in their data centers.

Despite the denials, which are also backed by the UK's national cyber security agency, retired Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell, and other unnamed Apple senior executives, Bloomberg said it stood by its report as of Friday, but didn't immeditately respond to requests for comment on Sunday.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Popular Stories

mac mini thermal architecture feature

New Mac Mini Has Modular Storage, 256GB Model Will Have Faster SSD

Friday November 8, 2024 7:06 am PST by
Apple has returned to using two 128GB storage chips in the new Mac mini with 256GB of storage, according to a partial teardown video shared on social media today. This means the base-model Mac mini with the M4 chip will not have significantly slower SSD speeds compared to higher-end configurations of the computer with 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB of storage, as multiple NAND chips allows for faster SSD...
best buy holiday

Best Buy Reveals Black Friday Plans With Sitewide Sales Available Now

Friday November 8, 2024 10:05 am PST by
Black Friday sales are continuing today with Best Buy kicking off early Black Friday deals that will last for the next few days. Similar to other retailers, Best Buy's early Black Friday event includes sitewide savings on Apple products, headphones, TVs, monitors, video games, and more. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may...
iphone passcode green

Cops Suspect iOS 18 iPhones Are Communicating to Force Reboots, Making Unlocking Harder

Thursday November 7, 2024 2:20 pm PST by
Law enforcement officials in Detroit, Michigan are warning other police officers about an alleged iPhone change that causes Apple devices stored for forensic examination to spontaneously restart, reports 404 Media. iPhones that are undergoing examination have apparently been rebooting, which makes them harder to unlock with brute force methods, and Michigan police think that it's due to a...
Generic iOS 18

Everything New in iOS 18.2 Beta 2

Monday November 4, 2024 12:34 pm PST by
Apple today seeded the second betas of upcoming iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2 updates to developers, and Apple is continuing to refine the Apple Intelligence capabilities. There are also a handful of smaller features that are worth knowing about. Find My Find My has a new option to Share Item Location with an "airline or trusted person" that can help you locate something that you've misplaced....
M4 MacBook Pros Thumb

M4 MacBook Pro Reviews: Processor Benchmarks Impress, New Nano-Texture Option Worth the Extra $150

Thursday November 7, 2024 6:14 am PST by
The first wave of reviews of Apple's new M4-powered MacBook Pro models were published this morning. We've collected some of the latest impressions from YouTube channels and select media outlets below. Apple last month announced the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, adding next-generation M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips, with Thunderbolt 5 ports on higher-end models, display and camera ...
High Power Mode Feature 2

Apple Expands High Power Mode to MacBook Pro and Mac Mini Models With M4 Pro Chip

Thursday November 7, 2024 12:15 pm PST by
High Power Mode is available on the 14-inch MacBook Pro, 16-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini models with the M4 Pro chip, according to Ars Technica's Andrew Cunningham. The feature was previously limited to Macs with Apple's highest-end "Max" chip, so this is the first time it is available on Macs with a "Pro" chip. This is the second time that Apple has expanded availability of High Power...
early apple watch black friday

The Best Early Black Friday Apple Watch Deals

Wednesday November 6, 2024 6:33 am PST by
Black Friday is just around the corner, and Apple Watch deals have begun appearing ahead of the shopping holiday on November 29. In this article, we'll take a look at all of the best early Black Friday Apple Watch deals, including the new Series 10 models. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small...
iOS 18 Notes Feature

How to Fix iPhone Notes Disappearing After Accepting New iCloud Terms

Thursday November 7, 2024 7:57 am PST by
Apple in September updated its iCloud terms and conditions with some minor changes, and this week it has been notifying iPhone users that they must accept the revised terms in order to continue using iCloud. Unfortunately, after accepting the new terms, some iPhone users have seen all of their notes disappear in the Notes app. While some users have turned to social media to justifiably panic ...

Top Rated Comments

Scottsoapbox Avatar
80 months ago
There are many ways to mask communications. I'm not surprised they found nothing.
Name one undetectable by common practices.

Fortune 500 companies employ teams of IT security experts. So please enlighten us armchair hacker.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
BaltimoreMediaBlog Avatar
80 months ago
This is a Dog & Pony Show. If there's an ongoing investigation, #1, they rarely will even tell you. #2 Apple and others might not even know about it. It's even possible no one will ever know if its a vulnerability that is still existing and could be done again. The government never confirms stuff like this and strongly warns companies to do the same while secretly working behind the scenes. Everyone would be told to DENY ANYTHING. If we do find out anything, it will only be AFTER any possible issue is resolved, not during. Could be years!
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
PotatoLeekSoup Avatar
80 months ago
Bloomberg joining #fakenews now? Sad!
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Scottsoapbox Avatar
80 months ago
No serious hacker enters through the front door. Thinking outside the box is all the fun. I mentioned the LZ4 frame format above, but even SSH, generally considered secure, also has the potential for abuse (although admittedly it is more difficult). The initial key exchange initialization (called a kexinit packet) contains some fields that are, in my experience, usually ignored. The potential is there for abuse as well. Generally, communication originating internally is a much more difficult thing to contain, but it certainly isn't impossible.

:rolleyes: I'm actually Security+ certified, so maybe I know a little more than you do.
Wow a certification! How many *weeks* was the class for that? I mean the exam has 90 whole questions. :rolleyes:

You know some people get whole degrees from accredited universities in this stuff.

Again you didn't list an undetectable way to communicate massive data with China. You listed areas that "abuse" could occur. Malware doing something is one thing. Malware on thousands of servers transmitting back to the motherland without any notice of the outbound traffic is something completely different.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AngerDanger Avatar
80 months ago
That diagram and entire article looks like something out of a 1993 Popular Mechanics magazine.
And from a quick glance, it looks like the illustrations depict china hacking our pencils!



Attachment Image
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Markoth Avatar
80 months ago
There are many ways to mask communications. I'm not surprised they found nothing.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)