The U.S. Trust in of Homeland Security said on Saturday it currently had no reason to doubt expressions from companies that have denied a Bloomberg report that their furnish chains were compromised by malicious computer chips inserted by Chinese tidings services.
“The Department of Homeland Security is aware of the media reports of a technology distribute chain compromise,” DHS said in a statement.
“Like our partners in the UK, the National Cyber Asylum Centre, at this time we have no reason to doubt the statements from the concerns named in the story,” it said.
Bloomberg Businessweek on Thursday cited 17 unknown intelligence and company sources as saying that Chinese spies had placed computer fragments inside equipment used by around 30 companies, as well as multiple U.S. regulation agencies, which would give Beijing secret access to internal networks.
Britain’s public cyber security agency said on Friday it had no reason to doubt the assessments insinuated by Apple and Amazon.com challenging the report.
Apple contested the Bloomberg put out on Thursday, saying its own internal investigations found no evidence to support the detective story’s claims and that neither the company, nor its contacts in law enforcement, were enlightened of any investigation by the FBI on the matter.
Apple’s recently retired general counsel, Bruce Sewell, trumpeted Reuters he called the FBI’s then-general counsel, James Baker, last year after being swore by Bloomberg of an open investigation of Super Micro Computer, a hardware maker whose offerings Bloomberg said were implanted with malicious Chinese interposes.
“I got on the phone with him personally and said, ‘Do you know anything about this?,” Sewell bring up of his conversation with Baker. “He said, ‘I’ve never heard of this, but send me 24 hours to make sure.’ He called me back 24 hours later and revealed ‘Nobody here knows what this story is about.'”
Baker and the FBI sank to comment on Friday.