Tech giants including Apple and Amazon have hit back at claims by Bloomberg their servers may have been fitted with tiny microchips placed there by Chinese spies.
The chips, which were ‘not much bigger than a grain of rice,’ would have given China unprecedented backdoor access to computers and data, according to Bloomberg.
Apple, Amazon and Super Micro, the Chinese motherboard manufacturer believed to have introduced the chips, have all issued statements denying the report.
Apple strongly denied the report in a statement, saying in a statement published to its website: ‘Over the course of the past year, Bloomberg has contacted us multiple times with claims, sometimes vague and sometimes elaborate, of an alleged security incident at Apple.
‘Each time, we have conducted rigorous internal investigations based on their inquiries and each time we have found absolutely no evidence to support any of them.
‘We have repeatedly and consistently offered factual responses, on the record, refuting virtually every aspect of Bloomberg’s story relating to Apple.
‘On this we can be very clear: Apple has never found malicious chips, ‘hardware manipulations’ or vulnerabilities purposely planted in any server. Apple never had any contact with the FBI or any other agency about such an incident,’ the firm added.
Similarly, Amazon Web Services, which oversees the data center equipment believed to have been targeted by the attack, denied the report’s findings.