The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies

Bloomberg | October 4, 2018, 4:00 AM CDT | Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley

[Zhang Fei]

Bloomberg link only.

[tomkat]

Yes, that’s what I’ve gathered.
Even if a home pc is clean, the real danger would seem to be ‘out there’ on all the big servers.
I suppose a guy’s better off not worrying too much about it and just trying to avoid any of those named bastards in future.
It’s not like I have anything worth hacking anyway .. lol :)
Thanks for the reply.

[rdcbn]

The potential for disaster is really scary, even if you are just an average guy with no thing worth hacking.

The malware of the chip could be designed to activate via an online signal command to take over control of your PC and use a weapon to attack networks and online sites via everything from a simple flooding of bandwidth type denial of service attacks to more sophisticated schemes by which an adversary takes control of the computer, turns it into a zombie that links up with other zombies to create a organic cloud type super computing network that could do some serious damage

[imardmd1]

>> TO EVERYONE. READ THE LINK DANIELL1212 has provided on a very dangerous Obama operative named Butler Burton. <<

[tomkat]

Yea, those thoughts crossed what little’s left of my mind,
but until some wizard comes up with a way to neutralize the threat on a per machine basis,
I’m at a loss as to what most folks can do about it, unfortunately.

[tomkat]

You have to wonder what the Chicoms’ next move will be now that their little micro mole has been outed . . .

[daniel1212]

>> TO EVERYONE. READ THE LINK DANIELL1212 has provided on a very dangerous Obama operative named Butler Burton. <<

The Butler did it!

[imardmd1]

WhoDunIt? MadMax is the Butler!

[omega4412]

The novel Ghost Fleet, by Singer and Cole, had most current US military hardware compromised by Chinese chips. The chips were designed to shut down when they received a coded signal from the Chinese at a particular microwave frequency.

[Rashputin]

Not like any company that really gave a damn about security didn't know this was coming sooner or later. Some tech folks have been warning about this type of attack since the late eighties but who listened?

Not companies looking to reduce their payroll by shipping production overseas and not politicians who bow to the big bucks no matter what country those bucks come from.

The next shoe to drop is how much mischief H1B Visa employees have been up to on behalf of their native country.

JMHo

[Elsie]

Any of you tech wizards know of a utility to sniff one’s pc for spy crap like this ?

Monitoring the OUTPUT of your computer to see if anything you DON'T want coming out of it is.

[Elsie]

I’m sure glad that OUR government never thought to do this to any of the EXPORTED military hardware we sell to other nations.

[Elsie]

The next shoe to drop is how much mischief H1B Visa employees have been up to on behalf of their native country.

HMMMmmm... how much mischief have US employees have been up to on behalf of the good ol' USofA?

[Alas Babylon!]

A sad fact for anyone trying to NOT buy a system with Chinese components:

Born in the USA: Computer Hardware Made in America

Are there any computer components made in America?

Yes, there are. However, not every part of these components is made in America. Finished components like DRAM and SSDs use domestically-produced NAND wafers. The other parts of the component—circuit boards, controllers, and assembly—are imported from around the globe, mainly China.

[Rashputin]

"HMMMmmm... how much mischief have US employees have been up to on behalf of the good ol' USofA?"

Not much of a question since Snowden went public. Americans willing to crap on their fellow Americans are a dime a dozen.