Amazon, Apple deny Bloomberg's well-sourced report of a massive Chinese hardware hack

If you're two of the world's most popular and profitable companies — or, say, the United States government — a major intelligence attack by a foreign power is news worth denying, vehemently.

On Thursday, Bloomberg Businessweek published a highly-sourced cover story detailing a stunning attack by the Chinese government capable of infiltrating companies including Apple and Amazon, as well as US intelligence agencies, the mormon church, and the porn industry.

According to the report, Chinese spies placed microchips the size of a sharpened pencil tip in the Chinese-manufactured servers of one of the most prolific server-providers in the world, Supermicro. The disguised microchips allowed the government to "alter the operating system’s core so it could accept modifications," and "contact computers controlled by the attackers in search of further instructions and code." Essentially, the microchips provided Chinese spies a secret passageway into the networks of almost 30 companies. Read more...