cyber wonders

10-9-18   The security expert, Yossi Appleboum, provided documents, analysis and other evidence of the discovery following the publication of an investigative report in Bloomberg Businessweek that detailed how China’s intelligence services had ordered subcontractors to plant malicious chips in Supermicro server motherboards over a two-year period ending in 2015.

  Appleboum previously worked in the technology unit of the Israeli Army Intelligence Corps….The U.S. is known to have extensive programs to seed technology heading to foreign countries with spy implants, based on revelations from former CIA employee Edward Snowden.  But China appears to be aggressively deploying its own versions, which take advantage of the grip the country has over global technology manufacturing….

  In response to the Bloomberg Businessweek story the Norwegian National Security Authority said last week that it had been "aware of an issue" connected to Supermicro products since June. 

  In the case of a major telecommunications company, Sepio's technology detected that the tampered Supermicro server actually appeared on the network as two devices in one.  The legitimate server was communicating one way, and the implant another, but all the traffic appeared to be coming from the same trusted server, which allowed it to pass through security filters.  

  Appleboum said one key sign of the implant is that the manipulated Ethernet connector has metal sides instead of the usual plastic ones.  The metal is necessary to diffuse heat from the chip hidden inside, which acts like a mini computer.  "The module looks really innocent, high quality and 'original' but it was added as part of a supply chain attack," he said.  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-09/new-evidence-of-hacked-supermicro-hardware-found-in-u-s-telecom

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10-5-18  

“Think of Supermicro as the Microsoft of the hardware world,” says a former U.S. intelligence official who’s studied Supermicro and its business model told Bloomberg.  “Attacking Supermicro motherboards is like attacking Windows, it’s like attacking the whole world.”   https://www.digit.in/general/a-tiny-spy-chip-the-size-of-a-rice-grain-could-have-compromised-servers-of-amazon-apple-cia-and-many-43945.html 

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3-19-18   Today IBM will be showing off the world's smallest computer at its Think 2018 conference.  This computer is the size of a grain of salt, contains a million transistors and only costs .10 to manufacture.

  This micro computer is being unveiled as part of IBM's crypto-anchors initiative, which are digital fingerprints that can be embedded in products such as medicine, cell phones, toys, watches and even wine to detect counterfeit products.  With product fraud costing the global economy $600 billion dollars a year, IBM is hoping crypto-anchors can help stem the tide of fraudulent products and counterfeit drugs.  https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/ibm-reveals-a-computer-the-size-of-a-grain-of-salt/