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Open Thread: Is that a Smile? [UPDATE]

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[FYI, update is at the bottom of this post./~Rayne]

I’m putting up an open thread since the BDTS thread is filling up as the Oversight Committee’s hearing continues.

There have been some developments in the case of National Enquirer owner AMI’s extortive letter to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, threatening to leak sext images exchanged with his paramour.

If you haven’t read Bezos’ open letter to AMI you really should. There’s something about AMI’s attempt that’s more than squicky; it smells sloppy and desperate.

Perhaps it merely reflects what Bezos says about AMI’s David Pecker — that Pecker was “apoplectic” about Bezos’ attempt to investigate the source of personal text messages leaked by AMI outlet National Enquirer.

Or perhaps it reflects some urgency related to the level of interest from other parties.

In any case, there were a number of discussions in Twitter last night as to whether AMI’s letter met the legal definition of extortion. Former fed prosecutor Renato Mariotti published a thread on the topic and former fed prosecutor Mimi Rocah also had questions about the letter.

Bloomberg reported today that the feds in SDNY are now looking into National Enquirer’s treatment of Bezos’ affair and whether it violates the agreement AMI entered into regarding the Michael Cohen “Catch and Kill” hush money case. The agreement prohibited further illegal activity.

What was it about Bezos’ private investigations that set off David Pecker so badly he’d not think about the implications to AMI’s agreements?

Bezos appears confident — though he hasn’t confirmed this in public — that the messages he exchanged with his married lover were entirely private. This suggests that their leakage was through illegal means.

Why would Pecker risk the possibility such an extortive act might expose illegal surveillance methods had been used against Bezos?

The one other recent case where Pecker’s name has come up in regard to aggressive surveillance and shaping news media coverage was that of Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein. Pecker and Weinstein have been characterized as friends:

Mr. Weinstein held off press scrutiny with a mix of threats and enticements, drawing reporters close with the lure of access to stars, directors and celebrity-packed parties. Some journalists negotiated book and movie deals with him even as they were assigned to cover him. The studio chief once paid a gossip writer to collect juicy celebrity tidbits that Mr. Weinstein could use to barter if other reporters stumbled onto an affair he was trying to keep quiet. He was so close to David J. Pecker, the chief executive of American Media Inc., which owns The Enquirer, that he was known in the tabloid industry as an untouchable “F.O.P.,” or “friend of Pecker.” That status was shared by a chosen few, including President Trump.

(source: Weinstein’s Complicity Machine, 05-DEC-2017)

Weinstein had hired Black Cube to bat clean up on stories about his sexually abusive behavior. Who referred this private investigation firm to Weinstein?

It’s also possible the effort to silence Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post (owned by Bezos through holding company Nash Holdings) was driven not by Pecker’s relationship with Donald Trump but by Pecker’s desire to do business in Saudi Arabia. What resources would have been used to obtain Bezos’ text messages if Pecker was already tied up with KSA?

Saudi Arabia has now responded by denying any involvement in the conflict between Bezos and AMI, minimizing the dispute as a “soap opera.”

Again, treat this as an open thread.
_______

UPDATE — 4:15 P.M. ET —

Activist Iyad El-Baghdadi has just finished a thread looking at the Bezos-AMI dispute. He had already pointed out each allusion to Saudi Arabia in Bezos’ letter; in his Twitter thread he says a Saudi whistleblower told him Crown Prince MBS is obsessed with the Washington Post and targeting WaPo journalists.

But the bit that clicked for me with regard to David Pecker: with its extortive letter attempting to blackmail performance from Bezos, if AMI was acting on behalf of or in coordination with a foreign nation-state, they may be in violation of Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Now one needs to ask themselves, assuming AMI did this for MBS/KSA, was this the first time they acted on behalf of another nation-state? Or have they acted as agents for foreign powers before and it’s all in their vaults?

Where’s that popcorn?

Rattled: China’s Hardware Hack – PRC’s Response

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[NB: Note the byline. Portions of my content are speculative. / ~Rayne]

The following analysis includes a copy of an initial response Bloomberg Businessweek received from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in response to its story, The Big Hack. In tandem with the Bloomberg story this was published on October 4 at this link. PRC’s response is offset in blockquote format. No signer was indicated in the published response. Additional responses to Bloomberg’s story will be posted separately.
__________

People’s Republic of China

China is a resolute defender of cybersecurity.[1] It advocates for the international community to work together on tackling cybersecurity threats through dialogue on the basis of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit.

[1] It’s hard to argue that PRC does not defend its own cybersecurity resolutely.

[2] There are four themes here, at least:

— collaboration and ongoing dialog, but this requires trust which are difficult to develop without openness;
— mutuality, which again requires trust;
— equality, an insistence that footing of those in dialog is level;
— benefit, implying a transactional nature.

This may be a very small paragraph but it is heavily loaded and not for the kind of lightweight, half-assed diplomacy we’ve seen from this administration.

Supply chain safety in cyberspace is an issue of common concern, and China is also a victim.[3] China, Russia, and other member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization proposed an “International code of conduct for information security” to the United Nations as early as 2011.[4] It included a pledge to ensure the supply chain security of information and communications technology products and services, in order to prevent other states from using their advantages in resources and technologies to undermine the interest of other countries.[5] 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, cooperative and orderly cyberspace.[6] —Translated by Bloomberg News in Beijing[7]

[3] What is PRC alleging here? Are they accusing the U.S. of compromising their supply chain? Difficult for the American public to debate this when it is so opaque though this comment may be based directly on NSA interception of networking equipment to be used in China as one example.
[4] What was happening between U.S. and Russia at that point in time? PRC acts as if an agreement to this code would happen in a vacuum.
[5] A dig at U.S.
[6] Another dig at U.S.
[7] There has been no apparent demand for correction to any of this translation.

Like Supermicro’s response this one is very short and effective, giving little away.

Still Rattled: Fallout and Pushback

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[NB: Note the byline. Portions of this post may be speculative. / ~Rayne]

The tech industry and technology journalism outlets remain rattled by Bloomberg Businessweek’s The Big Hack article.

Bloomberg Businessweek’s Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley published a second article last Tuesday in which a security expert went on the record about compromised servers with Supermicro motherboards in an unnamed telecommunications provider. Do read the article; the timing of the discovery of the unexpected network communications and the off-spec covert chip fit within the timeline of Apple and Amazon problems with Supermicro motherboards.

The FBI’s and DHS’ responses are also interesting — the first refused to comment and the second offered a tepid endorsement of Apple’s and Amazon’s denials.

The second article hasn’t assuaged industry members or journalists, though, in spite of a source on the record about a third affected entity.

The main criticisms of Bloomberg piece are:

— No affected equipment or firmware has been produced for review;

— Too much of Bloomberg’s sourcing remains anonymous;

— The claims cannot be validated by other journalists, technology companies, persons at Apple and Amazon who have been contacted and interviewed by non-Bloomberg journalists;

— Contacts inside the companies in question continue to deny knowledge if they don’t express confusion about the alleged hack;

— Apple and Amazon have published firm denials, including Apple’s preemptive letter to Congress.

However,

— Something drove both Apple and Amazon to change their relationship with Supermicro within a fairly tight time frame;

— The uniformity of their early denials in which they avoid mentioning hardware and lean toward web application as a point of conflict is odd;

— Neither of these enormous firms nor Supermicro have filed a lawsuit against Bloomberg for libel that the public can see, preventing questioning of Bloomberg’s journalists and sources under subpoena;

— Securities and Exchange Commission doesn’t appear to have been engaged to investigate the claims (although it’s possible the SEC is on this and may simply not have disclosed this publicly);

— None of the other unnamed companies alleged to have received compromised motherboards have uttered a peep to defend (or rebut) Apple or Amazon.

I have not seen in any reporting I’ve read to date — from either Bloomberg Businessweek in The Big Hack or subsequent articles examining the claims or rebutting them — that any journalist, tech industry member or infosecurity community member has asked whether Apple, Amazon, or the other affected companies ordered customized motherboards or servers with customized motherboards made to their company’s specifications. Supermicro has also said nothing about any possible differentiation between motherboards for different companies which would affect the scenario. The silence on this point is confounding.

This piece in Ars Technica captures many of the concerns other tech news outlets have with the Bloomberg reports. Complaints that software — meaning firmware — is easier to hack than adding off-spec hardware miss two key points.

Made-to-order components or assemblies in Just-In-Time lean manufacturing enterprises make it easier to ensure that adulterated products reach their intended mark because each order represents an identified, traceable batch. Adherence to ISO standards in manufacturing processes may even make traceability easier.

We know Supermicro uses lean manufacturing techniques because it’s in job postings online (lousy pay, by the way, which may also say something).

Does Supermicro use the same lean manufacturing approach overseas? Do any of its suppliers also use lean manufacturing?

In contrast, release of firmware (without corresponding adulterated hardware) to a single target is more difficult to control than hardware — the example given is Stuxnet (excerpt here from Ars Technica).

Why wouldn’t a determined nation-state ensure there was a failover, a Plan B method for accessing specific intelligence from a narrow range of sources instead of betting the farm on one method alone? Given the means to deploy both malicious firmware and adulterated hardware, why wouldn’t they try both?

~ | ~ | ~

In spite of tech industry and journalists’ criticisms of Bloomberg’s reporting, these facts remain:

1 — Technology supply chain has been compromised;

2 — U.S. government has known about it (pdf);

3 — U.S. government has not been forthcoming about it or the blacklists it has implemented;

4 — U.S. government has tried to investigate the compromise but with insufficient success;

5 — Some companies are also aware of the compromised supply chain.

We’re no closer to resolving this question: has the compromise of the supply chain remained limited to counterfeiting, or does the compromise now include altered products?

At what point will the tech industry and infosecurity community begin to take supply chain hacks more seriously?

_________

[AN: I still have to analyze both Apple’s letter to Congress and its second response posted on their website along with Amazon’s published response. More to come./~Rayne]

Rattled: China’s Hardware Hack – SMCI’s Response

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[NB: Note the byline. Portions of my content are speculative. / ~Rayne]

The following analysis includes a copy of an initial response Bloomberg Businessweek received from Super Micro Computer in response to its story, The Big Hack. In tandem with the Bloomberg story this was published on October 4 at this link. Super Micro Computer’s response is offset in blockquote format. No signer was indicated in the published response. Additional responses to Bloomberg’s story will be posted separately.
__________

Supermicro

While we would cooperate with any government investigation, we are not aware of any investigation regarding this topic nor have we been contacted by any government agency in this regard.[1] We are not aware of any customer dropping Supermicro as a supplier for this type of issue.[2]

[1] (a) “we are not aware” “nor have we been contacted” — who is we?

(b) “nor have we been contacted by any government agency” — has Supermicro been contacted by customers or their auditors or their security teams, contract or not, about security problems?

[2] Were one or more of Supermicro’s customers dropped by their customers because of security concerns including problems with firmware? Are any of the customers or customers of customers U.S. government entities?

Every major corporation in today’s security climate is constantly responding to threats and evolving their security posture. As part of that effort we are in regular contact with a variety of vendors, industry partners and government agencies sharing information on threats, best practices and new tools. This is standard practice in the industry today. However, we have not been in contact with any government agency regarding the issues you raised.[3]

[3] Has Supermicro been in contact with any government agency regarding any security issues including firmware updates?

Furthermore, Supermicro doesn’t design or manufacture networking chips or the associated firmware and we, as well as other leading server/storage companies, procure them from the same leading networking companies.[4]

[4] Interesting pointer about networking chips. What other motherboard content does Supermicro not design or manufacture, procuring from other companies? What procured motherboard components have firmware associated with them?

Rattled: China’s Hardware Hack – Amazon’s Response

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[NB: Note the byline. Portions of my analysis may be speculative. / ~Rayne]

The following analysis includes a copy of an initial response  received from Amazon by Bloomberg Businessweek in response to its story, The Big Hack. In tandem with the Bloomberg story Amazon’s response was published on October 4 at this link. The text of Amazon’s response is offset in blockquote format. No signer was indicated in the published response. Additional responses by Amazon to Bloomberg’s story will be assessed separately in a future post.

This analysis is a work in progress and subject to change.
__________

Amazon

It’s untrue that AWS[1] knew about a supply chain compromise, an issue with malicious chips, or hardware modifications[2] when acquiring Elemental. It’s also untrue that AWS knew about servers containing malicious chips or modifications in data centers based in China, or that AWS worked with the FBI[3] to investigate or provide data about malicious hardware.

[1] Identity – were there ever any third-party contractors or representatives involved in the relationship with Elemental? With Supermicro? Are there more than one Amazon subsidiary entity involved in the evaluation, purchasing, implementation of Elemental or Supermicro products into Amazon or its subsidiary enterprise? Which entity submitted this denial to Bloomberg Businessweek: Amazon, AWS, or some other subsidiary?

[2] What about evidence of bad or mismatched firmware and firmware updates?

[3] Did any law enforcement, military, or intelligence agency work with Amazon or any of its subsidiaries or contractors to investigate or provide data on hardware which failed to operate to specification or as expected?

We’ve re-reviewed our records[4] relating to the Elemental acquisition for any issues related to SuperMicro, including re-examining a third-party security audit[5] that we conducted in 2015 as part of our due diligence prior to the acquisition. We’ve found no evidence to support claims of malicious chips or hardware modifications.[6]

[4] “our records” — whose records and what kind? Identity needs clarification as well as the type of records.

[5] Who is the third-party security auditor? How and why were they engaged?

[6] What about evidence of bad or mismatched firmware and firmware updates?

The pre-acquisition audit described four issues with a web application (not hardware or chips)[7] that SuperMicro provides for management of their motherboards. All these findings were fully addressed before we acquired Elemental. The first two issues, which the auditor[8] deemed as critical, related to a vulnerability in versions prior to 3.15 of this web application (our audit covered prior versions of Elemental appliances as well), and these vulnerabilities had been publicly disclosed by SuperMicro on 12/13/2013.[9]

[7] “web application” — but not firmware?

[8] Is this still the unnamed third-party security auditor or an internal auditor employed by Amazon or a subsidiary?

[9] How was this “publicly disclosed by SuperMicro”? SMCI’s website does not currently have either a press release or an SEC filing matching this date (see screenshots at bottom of this page).

Because Elemental appliances are not designed to be exposed to the public internet, our customers are protected against the vulnerability by default.[10] Nevertheless, the Elemental team had taken the extra action on or about 1/9/2014 to communicate with customers and provide instructions to download a new version of the web application from SuperMicro (and after 1/9/2014, all appliances shipped by Elemental had updated versions of the web application).[11] So, the two “critical” issues that the auditor found, were actually fixed long before we acquired Elemental. The remaining two non-critical issues with the web application were determined to be fully mitigated by the auditors if customers used the appliances as intended, without exposing them to the public internet.[12]

[10] “exposed to the public internet” — did customer data run through Elemental’s Supermicro devices between 2013 and 2015?

[11] What about firmware?

[12] Did customer data still run through devices with the two non-critical issues? Are any machines with these non-critical issues still in production?

Additionally, in June 2018, researchers made public reports of vulnerabilities in SuperMicro firmware.[13] As part of our standard operating procedure, we notified affected customers promptly, and recommended they upgrade the firmware in their appliances.[14]

[13] Researchers at Eclypsium are reported to have told Supermicro of vulnerabilities in January 2018. When was Amazon, AWS, or other Amazon subsidiary notified of these vulnerabilties?

[14] Give the six-month gap between Eclypsium’s notification to Supermicro and the public’s notification, when were Amazon’s, AWS’, or other Amazon subsidiary’s customers notified of these vulnerabilties?

__________

Screenshots

Supermicro’s SEC filings – last of year 2013:

Supermicro’s press releases – last of year 2013:

Rattled: China’s Hardware Hack – Apple’s Response

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[NB: Note the byline. Portions of my content are speculative. / ~Rayne]

The following analysis includes a copy of an initial response received from Apple by Bloomberg Businessweek in response to its story, The Big Hack. In tandem with the Bloomberg story this was published on October 4 at this link. Apple’s response is offset in blockquote format. No signer was indicated in the published response. Additional responses from Apple to Bloomberg’s story will be assessed separately in a future post.

This analysis is a work in progress and subject to change.
__________

Apple

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.[1] 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.[2] We have repeatedly and consistently offered factual responses, on the record, refuting virtually every aspect of Bloomberg’s story relating to Apple.[3]

[1] Phrasing avoids who made the allegation(s).

[2] “rigorous internal investigations” doesn’t describe what they actually investigated; “each time” refers to investigations AFTER Bloomberg contacted Apple, AFTER 2016 when Apple had broken off relations with Supermicro.

[3] “refuting virtually aspect” does not mean “every and all.”

On this we can be very clear: Apple has never found malicious chips, “hardware manipulations” or vulnerabilities purposely planted in any server.[4] Apple never had any contact with the FBI or any other agency about such an incident.[5] We are not aware of any investigation by the FBI, nor are our contacts in law enforcement.

[4] (a) What about problems with firmware updates, including malicious firmware, firmware not issued by Supermicro, or hijacking to firmware upgrade sites not created by Supermicro?

(b) “purposely planted in any server” refers not to Supermicro’s motherboards but Elemental or other server assemblies.

[5] What about contact with any government agency regarding firmware? What about contact with a third-party entity regarding firmware problems, including security researchers?

[6] This phrasing focuses on law enforcement but not on other possibilities like intelligence entities or non-law enforcement functions like Commerce or Treasury Departments.

In response to Bloomberg’s latest version of the narrative, we present the following facts: Siri and Topsy never shared servers;[7] Siri has never been deployed on servers sold to us by Super Micro; and Topsy data was limited to approximately 2,000 Super Micro servers, not 7,000. None of those servers has ever been found to hold malicious chips.[9]

[7] (a) What about earlier versions of Bloomberg’s narrative the public hasn’t seen?

(b) Did Siri and Topsy ever share a data farm facility?

[8] (a) Was Siri ever deployed on Elemental brand servers?

(b) Was Topsy ever deployed on Elemental brand servers?

[9] Did any of the servers on which Siri and Topsy were deployed experience firmware problems including malicious firmware, firmware not issued by Supermicro, or hijacking to firmware upgrade sites not created by Supermicro?

As a matter of practice, before servers are put into production at Apple they are inspected for security vulnerabilities and we update all firmware and software with the latest protections. We did not uncover any unusual vulnerabilities in the servers we purchased from Super Micro when we updated the firmware and software according to our standard procedures.[10]

[10] Is this a statement of current practices or practices during the period of time about which Bloomberg reported? Why did Apple end its relationship with Supermicro?

We are deeply disappointed that in their dealings with us, Bloomberg’s reporters have not been open to the possibility that they or their sources might be wrong or misinformed. Our best guess is that they are confusing their story with a previously-reported 2016 incident in which we discovered an infected driver on a single Super Micro server in one of our labs.[11] That one-time event was determined to be accidental and not a targeted attack against Apple.[12]

[11] Gaslighting about the journalists’ credibility. Have there ever been any servers from Elemental or other server manufacturer with “infected drivers,” including the “single Super Micro server in one of our labs”? Were any servers of any make with “infected drivers” in production environments, whether they faced customers or not?

[12] How is an “infected driver” an accident?

While there has been no claim that customer data was involved, we take these allegations seriously and we want users to know that we do everything possible to safeguard the personal information they entrust to us.[13] We also want them to know that what Bloomberg is reporting about Apple is inaccurate.[14]

[13] This is not the same as saying “customer data was not exposed.”

[14] “inaccurate” but not “wrong,” “erroneous,” “false,” or “untrue”?

Apple has always believed in being transparent about the ways we handle and protect data.[15] If there were ever such an event as Bloomberg News has claimed, we would be forthcoming about it and we would work closely with law enforcement.[16] Apple engineers conduct regular and rigorous security screenings to ensure that our systems are safe. We know that security is an endless race and that’s why we constantly fortify our systems against increasingly sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals who want to steal our data.[17]

[15] Tell us about iPhone encryption.

[16] “an event” is not “events”. “Forthcoming” may not mean “public disclosure” or “reveal that we are under non-disclosure agreements.” “Would work closely with law enforcement” is not the same as “working with intelligence community,” or “working with Commerce/Treasury Departments.”

[17] No specific mention of nation-state actors.

Rattled: China’s Hardware Hack

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[NB: Note the byline. Portions of my analysis may be speculative. / ~Rayne]

As I noted in my last Three Things post, information security folks are rattled by the October 4 Bloomberg Businessweek report that extremely tiny microchips may have been covertly embedded in motherboards used by U.S. businesses.

Their cognitive dissonance runs in two general directions — the feasibility of implanting a chip at scale, and the ability of such a chip to provide a viable backdoor to a device.

Hardware security researchers and professionals have been debating manufacturing feasibility and chip ability across Twitter. Joe Fitz’ recent tweet threads suggest implantation of a rogue chip is entirely doable on a mechanical basis though what happens once a chip has been embedded must be assessed from a software perspective. Fitz is not alone in his assessment; other professionals and academics believe it’s possible to insert a ‘malicious’ chip. Computer security academic Nicholas Weaver pointed to small devices which could do exactly what the Bloomberg report suggested if these tiny objects were embedded into motherboards during manufacturing.

The feasibility also requires the right opportunity — a confluence of personnel, manufacturing capability and capacity, timing and traceability. Let’s say a rogue or compromised employee manages to slip chips into a batch of motherboards; which ones? To whom will they ship? How could a rogue/compromised employee ensure the motherboards left the facility undetected?

The Bloomberg report paints the U.S.-based Supermicro plant as a perfect environment in which such hardware infiltration could happen easily. With employees divided by two very different languages — English-speakers far less likely to understand Mandarin-speakers — discussions between multiple rogue/compromised employees could be very easy as would be sharing of written instructions. Supermicro’s ISO certifications for standards 9001, 13485, 14001, and 27001 may shed some light on how the company expected to manage two different languages in the same workplace.

One could argue a bilingual workplace shouldn’t pose a challenge given how many companies already use English/Spanish, English/French, or English/German. Compare, however, these words:

English: hardware

German: either hardware or computerhardware

French: either hardware or le matériel

Spanish: either hardware or los equipos

Mandarin: 硬件 (yìng jiàn)

With enough exposure the average English-as-primary-language worker could readily understand the most common western language words for equipment they were manufacturing. It would take considerably more investment in education to recognize and understand a pictographic language making casual quality control difficult.

The environment is even more challenging for mixed language staff in manufacturing plants located in China.

~ | ~ | ~

Let’s look at a timeline of events leading up to the Bloomberg report this week. Note how often the word ‘firmware‘ is used in this timeline and in the responses from Apple and Amazon to the Bloomberg story:

1993 — Charles Liang launched Supermicro.

2007 — Social search analytics company Topsy founded.

2005 — Defence Science Board warned “trojan horse” chips bought overseas could negatively affective military systems.

2008 — BusinessWeek reported that fake Chinese-made microchips had entered the military’s supply chain causing system crashes.

2010 — Defence Department bought 59,000 chips, unaware they were counterfeit.

2Q2011 — China denied entry visas to senators Levin and McCain staff for congressional probe in Guangdong province.

October 2011 — Apple releases Siri.

December 2013 — Apple acquired  Topsy.

December 2013 — Supermicro publicly disclosed vulnerability/ies in a web application related to management of motherboards (Amazon response, email Oct 2018)

December 2013 — CBS’ 60 Minutes program aired a story about the NSA in which a plot involving a rogue BIOS had been identified.

First half 2014 (date TBD) — Intelligence officials tell White House that PRC’s military would infiltrate Supermicro’s motherboard production with microchips intended for the U.S. market.

January 2014 — Elemental communicated to existing customers that a new version of the web app was available for download; equipment shipped after this date had updated versions of the web app. (Amazon response, email Oct 2018)

Early 2015 — Amazon launched pre-acquistion evaluation of startup Elemental Technologies which used Supermicro motherboards in servers it made.

Late spring 2015 — Elemental sent several servers to Ontario CAN for testing by third-party security firm. It found non-spec chips on server motherboards. (Bloomberg report)

May 2015 — Apple detected unusual network activity and experienced firmware problems.

Summer 2015 — Apple found non-spec chips on Supermicro motherboards Apple bought from Supermicro. (Bloomberg report)

September 2015 — Amazon announced its acquisition of Elemental.

December 2015 — Apple shut down Topsy.

Mid-2016 — Apple broke off its relationship with Supermicro.

June 2018 — Researchers publicized vulnerabilties found in Supermicro firmware. AWS notified customers and recommended a firmware upgrade. (Amazon response, email Oct 2018)

October 2018 — Amazon, Apple, Supermicro, and PRC submitted responses denying Bloomberg’s report. (Published by Bloomberg)

~ | ~ | ~

Follow up reporting by other news outlets increase the layers of denial that cloud companies Amazon and Apple were affected by a possible breach of the hardware supply chain.

Some have asked if Bloomberg’s report is merely an attempt to undermine Amazon and Apple, which are the two most valuable companies in the U.S. and in Apple’s case, the world.

It is their value and their place in the stock market along with the customers they serve which may drive some of the denial.

Remember that Amazon’s AWS has provided hosting to U.S. government agencies. Government employees also use Apple iPhones and by extension, Apple’s cloud services. Is it at all possible that in providing services to government agencies these corporations and/or their subsidiaries have been read into programs obligating a degree of secrecy which includes denial of vulnerabilities and breaches which do not affect directly the average non-governmental user of Amazon and Apple products and services?

~ | ~ | ~

There are additional events which appear to have happened independently of the alleged hardware supply chain infiltration. They may be extremely important and highly relevant if looked at from an industry and intelligence perspective.

March 2014 — Freescale Semiconductor lost 20 employees in apparent crash of Malaysia Air flight MH370 en route to Beijing. The employees were supposed to begin work on a new chip manufacturing facility in China. While Freescale’s chips were not those one might ordinarily associate with server motherboards, it’s worth asking if Freescale at that time had any chips which might have served as server chips, or if they could work as illicit hardware hacks when embedded in a motherboard. Freescale has since been acquired by NXP.

Late 2010 — Beginning in late 2010, China identified and executed a network of U.S. agents within its borders over a two-year period, resulting in the deaths of at least 30 persons and the prosecution of former CIA agent Jerry Chung Shin Lee who worked as an informant for PRC. The exposure of these spies was blamed in part on a compromised communications system which had been previously used in the middle east. Due to compartmentalization of the project, it’s reported Lee could not have identified the agents, placing more emphasis on the communications system.

Mid-2011 — China refused visas to staff for senators Carl Levin and John McCain for the purposes of investigating electronic components manufacturing in city of Shenzhen in Guangdong province. The congressional probe sought the source of counterfeit parts which had entered the U.S. military’s supply chain; U.S. Commerce Department reported in January 2010 that 400 companies surveyed “overwhelmingly cited China” as the point of origin for counterfeit parts.

These events spawn more questions when looking at technology supply chain hacking and communications systems which rely on this supply chain.

Did Freescale’s plans to expand production in China pose a risk to the hardware supply chain hack? Or was it simply a fluke that a substantive portion of the company’s manufacturing engineers disappeared on that flight? Though Freescale originated in Austin, Texas, it had a presence in China since 1992 with at least eight design labs and manufacturing facilities in China as of 2014.

Was the communications system used by doomed U.S. assets in China affected not by tradecraft or betrayal, or even by counterfeit parts, but by the hardware supply chain hack — and at an even earlier date than the timeline of events shown above related to Supermicro’s compromised motherboard production?

Did China refuse admittance to Guangdong province in 2011 related not to counterfeit parts but to the possibility that supply chain hacks beyond counterfeiting alone might be revealed?

Is the supply chain hack reported by Bloomberg part of a much larger security threat which has been slowly revealed but not widely acknowledged because the threat has been viewed through narrow military, or intelligence, or tech industry lenses?

The tech industry may be rattled by allegations that the computer hardware supply chain has been hacked. But the possibility this hack has gone on much longer and with massive potential collateral damage may truly shake them up.

~ | ~ | ~

There is a third train of cognitive dissonance, not limited to information security professionals. Persons outside the tech industry have indulged in denialism, taking comfort in the aggressive pushback by Apple and Amazon which each claim in their own way that the Bloomberg report is inaccurate. (I have an analysis of the early responses by Apple and Amazon; I will also examine later expanded responses as well as Supermicro’s and PRC’s responses as soon as time permits.)

But there have been reports for years about counterfeit electronic components, obstruction of investigations into these components, system failures which could be attributed to hardware or software which do not meet specifications. Cognitive dissonance also resists Bloomberg’s report that as many as 30 U.S. companies were affected, not just Apple and Amazon which have offered up high-profile rebuttals.

And there have been reports in industries outside of cloud services and the military where off specification or counterfeit electronic components have made it into production. One such anecdote appears in a thread at Hacker News YCombinator, discussing credit card payment systems and development of screening systems requiring application of tests using angular momentum to determine if a board has been altered without breaking the board’s tamper-proof seal.

In addition to his early tweets assessing feasibility of malicious or covert off-spec chips added to motherboards, Nicholas Weaver wrote a post for Lawfare about the Bloomberg report.

The Bloomberg story also explains a previous mystery: in 2016, Apple quietly removed all SuperMicro servers from their products due to an unspecified “Security Incident.”  At the time the rumor was that SuperMicro provided a sabotaged BIOS—that is, the bootstrap program used to start the computer, another “god mode” target for compromise. Apple denied then that there was any security incident—just as they are denying one now.

This incident once again illustrates the “Coventry problem,” referring to Winston Churchill’s apocryphal decision not to prevent the bombing of Coventry in order to keep secret that British intelligence had decrypted the Enigma machine. Robertson and Riley describe a U.S. intelligence apparatus that knew of these ongoing attacks, but could not effectively notify the affected companies nor provide useful recommendations. If the intelligence community had warned these companies, it would probably have revealed to the Chinese that the U.S. was aware of these activities, as well as potentially compromise an ongoing FBI investigation described in the article.

Weaver called the suspect Supermicro firmware a ‘BIOS’ — the first use of this term across multiple reports covering the Bloomberg report and its aftermath. This change in nomenclature is critical, particularly so given the point he makes about the “Coventry problem.” The term ‘BIOS’ does not appear in the early responses from Apple, Amazon, or Supermicro.

In December 2013, CBS’ 60 Minutes aired a report about the NSA; it appeared at the time to puff up the agency after the publication of Edward Snowden’s leaked documents about the government’s domestic spying using  PRISM. Within the story was a claim about a thwarted cyberattack:

Debora Plunkett: One of our analysts actually saw that the nation state had the intention to develop and to deliver, to actually use this capability— to destroy computers.

John Miller: To destroy computers.

Debora Plunkett: To destroy computers. So the BIOS is a basic input, output system. It’s, like, the foundational component firmware of a computer. You start your computer up. The BIOS kicks in. It activates hardware. It activates the operating system. It turns on the computer.

This is the BIOS system which starts most computers. The attack would have been disguised as a request for a software update. If the user agreed, the virus would’ve infected the computer.

John Miller: So, this basically would have gone into the system that starts up the computer, runs the systems, tells it what to do.

Debora Plunkett: That’s right.

John Miller: —and basically turned it into a cinderblock.

Debora Plunkett: A brick.

John Miller: And after that, there wouldn’t be much you could do with that computer.

The description sounds remarkably like the rogue firmware update in concert with a malicious/covert chip.

The manner in which this report was handled by the NSA, however, made it appear like disinformation. The assessment that such firmware would be used solely brick a device heightened the FUD around this report, deterring questions about applications other than bricking a device — like taking control of the computer, or collecting all its transaction and data. Was the FUD-enhanced release via 60 Minutes the intelligence community’s approach to the “Coventry problem”?

~ | ~ | ~

The problem Bloomberg’s Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley reported is probably much bigger than they described. It is bigger than Supermicro motherboards and firmware, and it’s not a problem of the near-term future but ongoing over the last decade.

At what point will U.S. industries organize a collective response to both counterfeit and off-specification manufacturing of electronic components overseas? They can’t count on a calm and rational response from the Trump administration given the unnecessary trade war it launched against China.
_____

Disclosure: I have positions in AAPL and AMZN in my investment portfolio.

Three Things: Russia and China Spying, Kavanope

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[NB: Yes, it’s Rayne, not Marcy. Check the byline.]

Huge news earlier today related to spying. Really big. MASSIVE.

And a MASSIVE cover-up pawned off on the feeble-minded as a ‘complete investigation‘ into Dr. Ford’s and Deborah Ramirez’s accusations against Brett Kavanaugh.

~ 3 ~

Bloomberg published an epic piece of investigative journalism this morning about China’s spying on U.S. businesses by way of tiny chips embedded in server motherboards. The photos in the story are just as important as the must-read story itself as they crystallize a challenge for U.S. intelligence and tech communities. Like this pic:

That tiny pale obelisk to the right of the penny represents one of the malicious chips found in affected Supermicro brand motherboards shipped to the U.S. market — nearly as small as the numbers in the date on the coin. Imagine looking for something this puny before a machine is turned on and begins to launch its operating system. Imagine trying to find it when it is sandwiched inside the board itself, embedded in the fiberglass on top of which components are cemented.

The chip could undermine encryption and passwords, making any system open to those who know about its presence. According to Bloomberg reporters  Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley, the chips found their way into motherboards used by Apple and Amazon.

Information security folks are scrambling right now because this report rocks their assumptions about the supply chain and their overall infosec worldview. Quite a few doubt this Bloomberg report, their skepticism heightened by the carefully worded denials offered by affected and relevant parties Apple, Amazon, Supermicro, and China. Apple provided an itemization of what it believed Bloomberg Businessweek got wrong along with its denial.

I’ll have more on this in a future post. Yes, indeedy.

~ 2 ~

A cooperative, organized response by Britain, The Netherlands, U.S., and Canada today included the indictment of seven Russians by the U.S. for conspiracy, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to launder money. The Russians have been identified as members of a GRU team organized out of a facility in Moscow, working on hacking and a disinformation influence campaign focused on anti-doping entities and non-Russian Olympic athletic competitors.

Note the underlined bit in this excerpt from the indictment (pdf) — the last indictment I copied with similar wording was that of Evgeny Buryakov and his two comrades, the three spies based in New York City who worked with “Male-1”, now known to be Carter Page. Who are the known and unknown? Persons who have flipped or co-conspirators yet to be named?

The UK released a statement as did the Canadians, and Netherlands issued a joint statement with the UK about the entirety of spying for which this GRU team is believed to be responsible, including an attempt to breach the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ (OPCW) facility analyzing the Novichok nerve agent used to poison the Skripals in the UK as well as chemicals used against Syrians.

Cryptocurrency news outlets report concerns that this indictment reveals the extent of USDOJ’s ability to trace cryptocurrency.

An interesting coincidence took place overnight as well — Russian Deputy Attorney General Saak Karapetyan died last night when an unauthorized helicopter flight crashed northeast of Moscow. Karapetyan had been linked this past January to Natalia Veselnitskaya and an attempt to recruit Switzerland’s top investigator as double-agents. But Karapetyan had also been involved in Russia’s response to the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the aftermath of the Skripals’ poisoning in the UK.

What remarkable timing.

One might wonder if this accident had anything to do with the unusual release of GRU personnel details by the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) and the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Justice during their joint statement today.

By comparing the released identity documents, passports, automobile registrations and the address provided when cars were rented, the identities of a total 305 GRU agents may have been identified by bellingcat and The Insider including the four out of the seven men wanted by the U.S. for the anti-doping hackingas well as attempted breach of OPCW.

The identity of the four GRU agents accused of targeting the OPCW was cinched by a taxi receipt in one agent’s pocket from a location on the road next to the GRU’s facility in Russia. Four agents also had consecutive passport numbers.

What remarkably bad opsec.

~ 1 ~

As for the impending vote on Brett Kavanaugh:

– Senator Heidi Heitkamp is voting her conscience — NO on Kavanaugh.
– Senator Joe Manchin is now the lone Dem holdout; he says he’s still listening but hasn’t seen anything incriminating from Kavanaugh’s adulthood. (Gee, I wonder why.)
– Senator Bob Menendez didn’t mince words. He said “It’s a bullshit investigation.” (He should know what a thorough investigation looks like).

And the beer-loving former Yale frat boy had an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal which pleads with us to lose all intelligence and believe that he is really very neutral. I am not even going to link to that POS which has re-enraged women all over the country.

GTFO.

Continue calling your senators to thank them for a NO vote on Kavanaugh so that they aren’t hearing right-wing demands alone. Congressional switchboard: (202) 224-3121

~ 0 ~

This is an open thread. Sic ’em.

Tuesday Morning: Speed of Love

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This video fascinates me. I’ve watched it a number of times since Nerdist shared it last month; it’s the 24-minute long set by Freddie Mercury and Queen at the 1985 Live Aid concert held in Wembley Stadium.

Nerdist noted the audience’s response reflects the speed of sound — the visible ripple of fans’ hands speeds across the crowd in response to the sound as it leaves the stage area and travels across the venue. The gif they shared was taken about 16:37 into this set, just as the band begins We Will Rock You.

I think there was more at work here because earlier snaps of the audience reaction during Radio Gaga (roughly 4:25 onward) don’t show the same marked wave across the crowd. But several points in the set Mercury interacts with the audience, coaxing them to sing and shout along with him.

And then at 16:35 when he begins We Will Rock You, the crowd is completely in sync with him. They adore him and are utterly engaged. The wave is not just sound but their feeling for Mercury and his performance.

Can you imagine a politician who could induce such a response?

Cybersecurity
Adobe Flash must die, and Google’s slowly exterminating it in Chrome (Ars Technica) — By year’s end, Flash will be disabled by default in Google’s Chrome browser. It will only play when manually enabled. All part of the slow migration to HTML5 away from risky Flash.

Antivirus app halts heart surgery (Ars Technica-UK) — Holy crap. Why does medical equipment need antivirus software to begin with, let alone how does an A/V app launch and run during surgery?

Artificial Intelligence
Dude, that female TA you hit on? An AI bot (Sydney Melbourne Herald) — Wow. Future’s already here and you can’t tell you’ve been dissed by both your prof and the chick-bot-TA.

A series of tubes
Remote healthcare not ready for prime time (ScienceDaily) — Study using fake patients to test direct-to-consumer teledermatology remote health care systems found security problems with IDs, poor-to-bad assignment of clinicians, many errors made in major diagnoses, insufficient warning to pregnant patients when meds prescribed, just for starters. Think of this as Healthcare Internet of Things Fail.

Super. Fast. Wireless. Internet. Coming. To. YOU! Really? (MIT Technology Review) — Ugh, so breathless with excitement they are about this startup called Starry. I was, too, initially, but we’ve been told this crap for more than a decade. Since this requires the cooperation of Verizon, AT&T, Facebook, and Google to standardize on this platform AND reception relies on line-of-sight, I’m not holding my breath.

The Business
New business for Amazon to tackle: its own private label groceries (Techcrunch) — Amazon doesn’t want to leave a penny on the table. If customers are too price sensitive to click their Dash button for a big name brand consumer good, they’ll offer their own instead. Prime accounts only, though; first goods will be heavy on baby needs, which makes sense given parents are often a captive audience.

Norway’s sovereign (oil) wealth fund to sue Volkswagen (AP) — Fossil fuel-created fund owns 1.64% stake in Volkswagen. It’s suing to protect its assets exposed by VW’s emissions controls cheat. Imagine me laughing at oil suing a car company for the manner in which it promulgated oil consumption.

Norway’s Statoil to launch first floating wind farm (Bloomberg) — This company is well ahead of Shell when it comes to diversifying energy production.

Flint Water Crisis
Michigan’s top law enforcement agent unaware of Michigan State Police “quiet investigation” (WZZM) — Still scratching my head over this one. Why did the governor ask MSP to conduct an administrative — not criminal — investigation, omitting the state attorney general? And who’s conducting a genuine criminal investigation, including the governor’s role?

Gender Equity
Toy maker(s) insisted Iron Man 3 movie must have male, not female villain (The Mary Sue) — In other words, Marvel’s big sweeping superhero movies are really just very long trailers to sell boys’ toys. Girls and women need not apply. I have no idea how they can make a decision based on any realistic data given the dearth of female villains on screen and in toys. Is this just some lame argument for inequity in front and behind the camera?

Running behind, probably read too much today and swamped my processing circuits. Hope mid-week becomes a little more focused — catch you tomorrow!

 

Tuesday Morning: Garbage in, Garbage out [UPDATE]

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Why’d I pick this music video, besides the fact I like the tune? Oh, no reason at all other than it’s trash day again.

Speaking of trash…

Facebook furor just frothy foam?
I didn’t add yesterday’s Gizmodo piece on Facebook’s news curation yesterday or the earlier May 3 piece because I thought the work was sketchy. Why?

  • The entire curation system appears to be contractors — Where is a Facebook employee in this process?

    “…News curators aren’t Facebook employees—they’re contractors. One former team member said they received benefits including limited medical insurance, paid time off after 6 months and transit reimbursement, but were otherwise excluded from the culture and perks of working at Facebook. […] When the curators, hired by companies like BCForward and Pro Unlimited (which are then subcontracted through Accenture to provide workers for Facebook), arrive at work each day, they read through a list of trending topics ranked by Facebook’s algorithm from most popular (or most engaged) to least. The curators then determine the news story the terms are related to.

    The news curation team writes headlines for each of the topics, along with a three-sentence summary of the news story it’s pegged to, and choose an image or Facebook video to attach to the topic. The news curator also chooses the “most substantive post” to summarize the topic, usually from a news website. […] News curators also have the power to “deactivate” (or blacklist) a trending topic—a power that those we spoke to exercised on a daily basis. …” (emphasis mine)

    I see a Facebook-generated algorithm, but no direct employees in the process — only curator-contractors.

  • Sources may have a beef with Facebook — This doesn’t sound like a happy work environment, does it?

    “…Over time, the work became increasingly demanding, and Facebook’s trending news team started to look more and more like the worst stereotypes of a digital media content farm.

    […]

    Burnout was rampant. ‘Most of the original team isn’t there anymore,’ said another former news curator. ‘It was a stop-gap for them. Most of the people were straight out of [journalism school]. At least one of them was fired. Most of them quit or were hired by other news outlets.’ …” (emphasis mine)

    It’s not as if unhappy contractors won’t have newsworthy tips, but what about unhappy Facebook employees? Where are they in either of Gizmodo’s pieces?

  • Details in the reporting reveal bias in the complainant(s) — So far I see one reference to a conservative curator, not multiple conservative curators.

    “Facebook workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network’s influential “trending” news section, according to a former journalist who worked on the project.

    […]

    Other former curators interviewed by Gizmodo denied consciously suppressing conservative news, and we were unable to determine if left-wing news topics or sources were similarly suppressed. The conservative curator described the omissions as a function of his colleagues’ judgements; there is no evidence that Facebook management mandated or was even aware of any political bias at work. …”

    Note the use of “a” in front of “former journalist” and “the” in front of “conservative curator.” (Note also Gizmodo apparently needs a spell check app.)

  • No named sources confirming the validity of the complaints or other facts in Gizmodo’s reporting — Again, where are Facebook employees? What about feedback from any of the companies supplying contractors; did they not hear complaints from contractors they placed? There aren’t any apparent attempts to contact them to find out, let alone anonymous confirmation from these contract companies. There are updates to the piece yesterday afternoon and this morning, including feedback from Vice President of Search at Facebook, Tom Stocky, which had been posted at Facebook. Something about the lack of direct or detailed feedback to Gizmodo seems off.
  • Though named in the first of two articles, Facebook’s managing editor Benjamin Wagner does not appear to have been asked for comment. The May 3 piece quotes an unnamed Facebook spokesperson:

    When asked about the trending news team and its future, a Facebook spokesperson said, “We don’t comment on rumor or speculation. As with all contractors, the trending review team contractors are fairly compensated and receive appropriate benefits.”

I’m disappointed that other news outlets picked up Gizmodo’s work without doing much analysis or followup. Reuters, for example, even parrots the same phrasing Gizmodo used, referring to the news curators as “Facebook workers” and not contract employees or contractors. Because of this ridiculous unquestioning regurgitation by outlets generally better than this, I felt compelled to write about my concerns.

And then there’s Gizmodo itself, which made a point of tweeting its report was trending on Facebook. Does Gizmodo have a beef with Facebook, too? Has it been curated out of Facebook’s news feed? Are these two pieces really about Facebook’s laundering of Gizmodo?

I don’t know; I can’t tell you because I don’t use Facebook. Not going to start now because of Gizmodo’s sketchy reporting on Facebook, of all things.

Miscellany
Just some odd bits read because today is as themeless as yesterday — lots of garbage out there.

Skepticism: I haz it
As I read coverage about news reporting and social media leading up to the general election, I also keep in the back of my mind this Bloomberg report, How to Hack an Election:

As for Sepúlveda, his insight was to understand that voters trusted what they thought were spontaneous expressions of real people on social media more than they did experts on television and in newspapers. […] On the question of whether the U.S. presidential campaign is being tampered with, he is unequivocal. “I’m 100 percent sure it is,” he says.

Be more skeptical. See you tomorrow morning!

UPDATE — 1:30 P.M. EDT —

‏@CNBCnow
JUST IN: Senate Commerce Commtitte chair sends letter to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg seeking answers on alleged manipulation of trending news

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS? THE SENATE GOING TO WASTE TAX DOLLARS ON THIS WHEN EVERY. SINGLE. NEWS. OUTLET. USES EDITORIAL JUDGMENT TO DECIDE WHAT TO COVER AS NEWS?

Cripes, Gizmodo’s poorly sourced hit piece says,

“…In other words, Facebook’s news section operates like a traditional newsroom, reflecting the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation. …”

Yet the Senate is going to pursue this bullshit story after Gizmodo relied on ONE conservative curator-contractor — and their story actually says an algorithm is used?

Jeebus. Yet the Senate will ignore Sheldon Adelson’s acquisition of the biggest newspaper in Las Vegas in a possible attempt to denigrate local judges?

I can’t with this.

UPDATE — 3:35 P.M. EDT —
The Guardian reports the senator wasting our tax dollars questioning a First Amendment exercise by Facebook is John Thune. Hey! Guess who’s running for re-election as South Dakota’s senior senator? Why it’s John Thune! Nothing like using your political office as a free press-generating tool to augment your campaign. I hope Facebook’s algorithm suppresses this manufactured non-news crap.