The tiny chip that infiltrated the US
In 2015, Amazon began evaluating a start-up called Elemental Technologies, a potential acquisition to help with a major expansion of its streaming video service, known today as Amazon Prime Video.
Elemental made software for compressing video files and formatting them for different devices. Its technology had helped stream the Olympic Games online, communicate with the International Space Station, and funnel drone footage to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Elemental’s national security contracts weren’t the main reason for the proposed acquisition, but they fit nicely with Amazon’s government businesses, such as work Amazon Web Services (AWS) was doing for the CIA.
To help with due diligence, AWS hired a third-party company to scrutinise Elemental’s security. The first pass uncovered troubling issues, prompting AWS to take a closer look at Elemental’s main product, the expensive servers customers installed in their networks to handle the video compression. These were assembled for Elemental by Super Micro Computer, a company (known as Supermicro) that’s one of the world’s biggest suppliers of server motherboards. In 2015, Elemental boxed up several servers and sent them to Canada for the third-party security company to test.
On the servers’ motherboards, testers found a tiny microchip that wasn’t part of the boards’ original design. Amazon reportedit to US authorities, sending a shudder through the intelligence community. Elemental’s servers could be found in Department of Defence data centres, the CIA’s drone operations, and the networks of Navy warships.
During the ensuing probe, which remains open more than three years later, investigators determined the chips allowed the attackers to create a stealth doorway into any network that included the altered machines. People familiar with the matter say investigators found the chips had been inserted at factories run by manufacturing subcontractors in China.
There are two ways for spies to alter the guts of computer equipment. One, known as interdiction, consists of manipulating devices in transit from manufacturer to customer. The other involves seeding changes from the very beginning.
One country has an advantage executing this kind of attack, China. Still, to accomplish a seeding attack would mean a deep understanding of a product’s design, manipulating components at the factory, and ensuring the doctored devices made it through the global logistics chain to the desired location. “Having a welldone, nation-state-level hardware implant surface would be like witnessing a unicorn jumping over a rainbow,” says Joe Grand, a hardware hacker and the founder of Grand Idea Studio.
US investigators found the chips had been inserted during the manufacturing process, two officials say, by operatives from a unit of the People’s Liberation Army. In Supermicro, China’s spies appear to have found a perfect conduit for what US officials now describe as the most significant supply chain attack known to have been carried out against American companies.
One official says investigators found that it eventually affected almost 30 companies, including a major bank, government contractors, and the world’s most valuable company, Apple. Three senior insiders at Apple say that in 2015, it, too, found malicious chips on Supermicro motherboards. Apple severed ties with Supermicro the following year.
In emailed statements, Amazon, Apple, and Supermicro disputed summaries of Bloomberg Businessweek’s reporting. “It’s untrue that AWS knew about a supply chain compromise, an issue with malicious chips, or hardware modifications when acquiring Elemental,” Amazon wrote. “On this we can be very clear. Apple has never found malicious chips, ‘hardware manipulations’ or vulnerabilities purposely planted in any server,” Apple wrote: “We remain unaware of any such investigation,” wrote a spokesman for Supermicro, Perry Hayes. The Chinese Government didn’t directly address questions about manipulation of Supermicro servers, issuing a statement that read, in part: “Supply chain safety in cyberspace is an issue of common concern, and China is also a victim.” The FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, representing the CIA and NSA, declined to comment.
The companies’ denials are countered by six current and former senior national security officials who detailed the discovery of the chips and the Government’s investigation.
One Government official says China’s goal was long-term access to high-value corporate secrets and sensitive government networks.
Today, Supermicro sells more server motherboards than almost anyone else. It also dominates the US$1 billion market for boards used in special-purpose computers. Its motherboards can be found in made-to-order server setups at banks, hedge funds, cloud computing providers, and web-hosting services. Supermicro’s motherboards are nearly all manufactured by contractors in China.
With more than 900 customers in 100 countries by 2015, Supermicro offered inroads to a collection of sensitive targets. “Think of Supermicro as the Microsoft of the hardware world,” says a former US intelligence official. “Attacking Supermicro motherboards is like attacking Windows. It’s like attacking the whole world.”
Well before evidence of the attack surfaced, American intelligence sources were reporting that China’s spies had plans to introduce malicious microchips into the supply chain. Government investigators were still chasing clues on their own when Amazon made its discovery and gave them access to sabotaged hardware, says a US official. This created an opportunity for intelligence agencies and the FBI to see what the chips looked like and how they worked.
Since the implants were small, the amount of code they contained was small. But they were capable of telling the device to communicate with anonymous computers on the internet with a more complex code, and preparing the device’s operating system to accept this new code. It could let the attackers alter how the device functioned, line by line, leaving no one the wiser. What remained for investigators to learn was how the attackers had infiltrated Supermicro’s production process, and how many doors they’d opened into American targets.
US spy agencies sifted through communications intercepts, tapped informants in Taiwan and China, tracked key individuals through their phones. Eventually they traced the malicious chips to four subcontracting factories that had been building Supermicro motherboards for two years.
The investigators concluded the scheme was the work of a People’s Liberation Army unit specialising in hardware attacks. The unit is believed to focus on high-priority targets, including advanced commercial technology and the computers of rival militaries.
Provided details of Businessweek’s reporting, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a statement that said: “China is a resolute defender of cybersecurity.” The statement concluded: “We hope parties make less gratuitous accusations and suspicions but conduct more constructive talk and collaboration so that we can work together in building a peaceful, safe, open, co-operative and orderly cyberspace.”
Although the investigators couldn’t be sure they’d found every victim, a person familiar with the US probe says they concluded that the number was almost 30 companies.
Amazon announced its acquisition of Elemental in September 2015, in a deal said to be worth at US$350m. Mindful of the Elemental findings, Amazon’s security team conducted its own investigation into AWS’s Beijing facilities and found altered motherboards there as well.
In August 2016 Amazon moved operational control of its Beijing data centre to its local partner, Beijing Sinnet. In November, Amazon sold the entire infrastructure to Beijing Sinnet. The person familiar with Amazon’s probe casts the sale as a choice to “hack off the diseased limb”.
As for Apple, in 2016 it informed Supermicro it was severing their relationship entirely.
A Supermicro spokesman, says the company has never been notified of the existence of malicious chips on its motherboards by either customers or US law enforcement.