Bloomberg Hack Allegations Denied by Tech Companies

Over the weekend, tech companies including Amazon, Apple and Supermicro had put out statements to deny Chinese hacking allegations made by Bloomberg Businessweek last week.

On Oct.5, Bloomberg Businessweek reporters published an in-depth cover story, claiming that Chinese intelligence has secretly implanted spy chips into motherboards used by Supermicro servers. According to the report, the spy chips in question have already made their way into the IT arms of more than 30 American tech companies, including tech giants Amazon and Apple, and have compromised the networks of U.S. and U.K. governments. In the report, Bloomberg cited 17 unnamed sources.

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This report shocked the public, both in the U.S. and China, and cut Supermicro’s market cap by half. Supermicro’s share price plunged 41.12 percent to $12.60 with intraday lows of $8.50.

Supermicro, a San Jose-based company, is one of the world’s largest supplier of server motherboards. Many of the company’s assembly factories are located in mainland China, where Bloomberg reporters believe those spy chips are implanted by Chinese military intelligence to form significant supply chain attacks.

All three major companies mentioned in the piece vehemently denied the claims in Bloomberg’s report.

Apple claimed in a statement named “What Businessweek Got Wrong about Apple” that “there is no truth to these claims” and explained thoroughly why the report is completely untrue.

Similarly, Amazon called the report “erroneous” on its AWS blog and explained that there are so many inaccuracies in ‎the article as it relates to Amazon that the errors are “hard to count”.

Supermicro also denied the report, saying that the company has never been contacted by any government body, agency, domestic or foreign alike, regarding the alleged claims.

Despite this, Bloomberg stands by the report. When reached for comment by CNBC, Bloomberg said, “We stand by our story and are confident in our reporting and sources.”