Bloomberg is still reporting on challenged story regarding China hardware hack

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/11/27/bloomberg-is-still-reporting-on-challenged-story-regarding-china-hardware-hack/

By Erik Wemple
Media Critic
The Washington Post
November 27, 2018

In early October, Bloomberg Businessweek published one of the year's most 
stunning tech stories. Under the headline "The Big Hack," reporters Jordan 
Robertson and Michael Riley reported that China had managed to infiltrate 
top U.S. companies -- including server company Super Micro (or Supermicro) 
and Apple -- with a chilling hardware hack carrying implications for the 
entire U.S. economy. It came under fire immediately, as government 
officials and the companies themselves either denied the reporting or 
claimed no familiarity with it.

In response, Bloomberg issued a statement that read, in part: "Bloomberg 
Businessweek's investigation is the result of more than a year of 
reporting, during which we conducted more than 100 interviews."

The company can now adjust those numbers a bit. According to informed 
sources, Bloomberg has continued reporting the blockbuster story that it 
broke on Oct. 4, including a very recent round of inquiries from a 
Bloomberg News/Bloomberg Businessweek investigative reporter. In emails to 
employees at Apple, Bloomberg's Ben Elgin has requested "discreet" input 
on the alleged hack. "My colleagues' story from last month (Super Micro) 
has sparked a lot of pushback," Elgin wrote on Nov. 19 to one Apple 
employee. "I've been asked to join the research effort here to do more 
digging on this ... and I would value hearing your thoughts (whatever they 
may be) and guidance, as I get my bearings."

One person who spoke with Elgin told the Erik Wemple Blog that the 
Bloomberg reporter made clear that he wasn't part of the reporting team 
that produced "The Big Hack." The goal of this effort, Elgin told the 
potential source, was to get to "ground truth"; if Elgin heard from 10 or 
so sources that "The Big Hack" was itself a piece of hackery, he would 
send that message up his chain of command. The potential source told Elgin 
that the denials of "The Big Hack" were "100 percent right."

According to the potential source, Elgin also asked about the possibility 
that Peter Ziatek, senior director of information security at Apple, had 
written a report regarding a hardware hack affecting Apple. In an 
interview with the Erik Wemple Blog, Ziatek says that he'd never written 
that report, nor is he aware of such a document. Following the publication 
of Bloomberg's story, Apple conducted what it calls a "secondary" 
investigation surrounding its awareness of events along the lines of what 
was alleged in "The Big Hack." That investigation included a full pat-down 
of Ziatek's own electronic communications. It found nothing to corroborate 
the claims in the Bloomberg story, according to Ziatek.

[...]



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