
Investigating Implausible Bloomberg Supermicro Stories - vanburen
https://www.servethehome.com/investigating-implausible-bloomberg-supermicro-stories/
======
galadran
> The point is, to combine even less powerful elements of each into a package
> with the functionality Bloomberg describes, it would require amazingly small
> lithography techniques. I have yet to find someone able to say that adding
> processing power, signaling interfaces, networking (even a MAC), and memory/
> storage onto a package this size is even possible and I have asked folks in
> the valley that do this at major companies.

Meanwhile at the NSA, in 2008: "Not only can we do that, we'll throw in a high
frequency radio as well for beating air gaps, and it will only cost you 10k!
Oh, and we'll fit it _INSIDE_ an ethernet port."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog#/media/File:NS...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog#/media/File:NSA_FIREWALK.jpg)

I'm sure the 2018 series is even smaller and even cheaper...

~~~
nneonneo
OK, but Bloomberg said some Chinese spy chips were the size of tiny signal
couplers. That "ethernet port" is actually a dual-stacked Ethernet/USB port
measuring over 1 cubic inch in volume - it is hardly "small". 2008 NSA's
"TRINITY" microcontroller, which forms the basis for most of their designs, is
a bit smaller than a US penny, which isn't exactly "signal coupler" tiny.

I can't guess at what 2018 NSA might have, nor can I guess at what 2018 PLA
might have, but I think it's hard to jump immediately to believing this.

~~~
Sephr
With FEL lithography and enormous budgets most of the Bloomberg claims seem
quite possible.

~~~
still_grokking
Why should someone attack a quit low priority target like Apple or Amazon with
such sophisticated technology? It would make more sense to aim at say the
White House or the Pentagon or something like that.

~~~
quantummkv
According to the Bloomberg article, Amazon learned of this when they did a
security check on Elemental, a company they wanted to buy. Elemental's video
processing devices with supermicro boards are present on US navy warships, for
example.

And Amazon also runs the GovCloud. And are the leading vendor in the race for
Pentagon's cloud contract.

------
phire
This response appears to be grasping at straws to try and prove that the
described chip doesn't and couldn't exist. It reads like FUD.

I find this article to be much more convincing
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/04/supermicro_bloomber...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/04/supermicro_bloomberg/)

It points out that 6 pins is enough to intercept and inject code into the SPI
bus between the Baseboard Management Controller and it's bootflash.

Once you have code running on the BMC, you can use it's capabilities to call
home (via either the BMC's nic or the main nic, depending on how well the
network firewalls are locked down) and then modify or simply read the main
system's memory.

I don't want to claim that Bloomberg is right about the attack happening, just
that the attack is surprisingly plausible.

~~~
azinman2
Not to mention if you pulled this off, it’s likely you have many other hacks
in place too.. such as defeating firewalls and the local network config.

They’re also taking bloomberg verbatim, when they likely have technical
details incorrect. That doesn’t mean the gist is wrong (which may or may not
be, I have no idea, I just think a lot of this article’s arguments are on weak
foundation).

------
ebeip90
As a former spook with absolutely no knowledge about this incident, the whole
thing sounds like:

* The Chinese supply chain interdiction / implant installation is real

* Those companies ARE aware of such events

* Those companies DID report it to USGOV

* The investigation is classified and Bloomberg didn't know or doesn't care

* The government is doing its traditional "Deny, disavow, do not acknowledge" etc.

* The companies were probably threatened with legal action / gag order preventing them from acknowledging the event

When I started working for DOD, one of the things in training was that you
were always to say "I can neither confirm nor deny X". Eventually they
realized that this statement itself is revealing, and suggested you just STFU.

The whole thing sounds incredibly plausible, and nooooooooobody was supposed
to know about it.

~~~
macintux
The fact that Apple and Amazon are willing to go on the record adamantly
denying it is more than just a gag order. That’s a serious breach of both SEC
rules and public trust if it turns out they’re lying.

~~~
Niksko
Does freedom of speech guarantee that they can't be coerced into punlic
denial? Does a national security letter / other forms of government oversight
override this?

(It absolutely shouldn't in a democracy, but there are plenty of things that
shouldn't happen in democracies that have been happening lately)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Freedom of speech doesn't supersede securities fraud.

~~~
Intermernet
NSL probably does.

------
pdabbadabba
This is an interesting piece, which may be correct on some points. But it gets
off to a pretty rocky start, building its case around overly aggressive claims
directed at uncharitable (some might say crabbed) readings of the Bloomberg
piece.

> That first part starting with “telling the device…” is nonsensical.

A fairer statement, in light of the article's own explanation, would have been
"assumes that the BMC is networked in an insecure way unusual (perhaps even
unheard of) at large sophisticated tech companies, or a network compromised in
such a way to bypass blocked egress routes."

In other words: no. The statement is perfectly sensical, and probably even
true of many networks. The author simply doubts whether this could be possible
in what he regards as a properly configured (and not otherwise compromised)
network.

> The next inaccuracy to this paragraph is the line describing BMCs as “giving
> them access to the most sensitive code even on machines that have crashed or
> are turned off.” That is not how this technology works.

But the author then goes on to explain how BMCs could indeed be used to power
on machines that were previously powered off, potentially allowing access to
sensitive data. (Presuming that the machine is also compromised in other ways,
presumably by downloading malicious code).

------
gwern
> Baseboard management controllers or BMCs are active on crashed or turned off
> servers. They allow one to, for example, power cycle servers remotely...This
> line from the Bloomberg is technically inaccurate because a powered off
> server’s storage with its sensitive code has no power and cannot be
> accessed. We have discussed two patently false technical details in the
> Bloomberg article.

Er... couldn't a hypothetical backdoor BMC chip... turn the server back on?
And then off again when it's done?

~~~
mjevans
Since I couldn't flash my own OS in to the BMC components, where I work those
ports and the 'combo' bmc+normal ports are not used on public facing networks.

A BMC really should be just a fully open minicomputer. Ideally there'd be a
slot for something like a Raspberry PI to be used as an add-on BMC card.

~~~
Teknoman117
I'd really like there to be more servers which support OpenBMC.

------
EB66
> That first part starting with “telling the device…” is nonsensical. If you
> are in the industry or read our Basic BMC and IPMI Management Security
> Practices piece, you would know that this is false.

Based on my experience in the industry, I'd say this isn't quite accurate.

Yes, the author is correct in his assertion that BMCs are typically
provisioned on private networks that are only accessible to outside users via
a VPN. He is also correct that you cannot "tell" the BMC to do anything
without access to that private network.

However, the author assumes that the operator has disabled egress connectivity
on the private network setup for OOB BMC access. In reality, that happens less
often than you'd think. Many firewalls by default do not block egress requests
and without egress filtering, the BMC can still make outbound requests to the
public world. A compromised BMC could easily "phone home" and receive
instructions from a command and control server.

~~~
illumin8
I've worked in a dozen or so Fortune 500 companies IT departments and I've
never seen any incompetent enough to connect a BMC/management network to any
type of Internet connected firewall, router, or egress gateway.

I've seen many that use flat management networks, which is a bad security
practice, but connecting it to the Internet would require a new level of
stupidity.

~~~
greglindahl
Sure, I've always segregated BMC dedicated ports to a non-connected network.
But the BMC can also talk on the regular ethernet ports whenever it feels like
it.

~~~
angry_octet
It can usually only vampire onto the first ethernet port. Depends on the
motherboard, whether both ports are e.g. Intel, or one Intel, the other
something else. Also, usually only 1000base-T not 10G.

~~~
yellowapple
I'm sure even 10baseT is more than enough to phone home.

~~~
angry_octet
The 1000base-T ports are often not connected to the production network, only
the 10G.

------
eiaoa
>> Since the implants were small, the amount of code they contained was small
as well. But they were capable of doing two very important things: _telling
the device to communicate with one of several anonymous computers elsewhere on
the internet that were loaded with more complex code_ ; and preparing the
_device’s operating system to accept this new code_. The illicit chips could
do all this because they were connected to the _baseboard management
controller_ , a kind of superchip that administrators use to remotely log in
to problematic servers, _giving them access to the most sensitive code even on
machines that have crashed or are turned off._ (Source: Bloomberg with
emphasis added to highlight key points for discussion)

> That first part starting with “telling the device…” is nonsensical. If you
> are in the industry or read our Basic BMC and IPMI Management Security
> Practices piece, you would know that this is false.

This is not a very well-written article. How does this website's "best
practices" document refute Bloomberg's story? The obvious problem is that not
all organizations follow best practices, including many that you'd assume
would, and those that do don't always follow them consistently. More subtly,
if the BMC is subverted, you can't rely on to follow its normal programming or
configuration: even if you have a segregated management network with no
network access, the subverted BMC isn't required to use it and can use the
"shared port" instead.

When you're dealing with subverted hardware or software, _you have to throw
out most of your assumptions about how those things work_ that were formed in
normal cases. It's clear that the authors of this article did not do that.

~~~
zero_intp
exceptional claims require exceptional evidence, Bloomberg has not done so.

The article raises a fair number of solid criticisms regarding BCP to
eliminate the described vulnerability.

------
chx
This whole thing reeks. The only company that could be hurt by this is
Supermicro and it's a small company, it reached 2B back in 2015 and has only
declined since. This matters because if this is a con fueled by an SMCI short
then such a short position would need to be so big it would draw the attention
of SEC. Something this big, it's not worth for anything less than hundred(s)
of millions and then you are sitting on a short position of like what, ten,
twenty percent of the entire market cap of SMCI? This makes no sense.

~~~
myWindoonn
The problem with this idea is that SMCI was delisted for not filing basic
paperwork with the SEC, and the delisting occurred before the Bloomberg piece
was released. [0]

[0]
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/22/supermicro_facing_n...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/22/supermicro_facing_nasdaq_delisting/)

~~~
chx
[https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/supermicro-
announc...](https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/supermicro-announces-
suspension-of-trading-of-common-stock-on-nasdaq-and-its-intention-to-
appeal-2018-08-23)

Right.

So then the SMCI short can be ruled out. What else could fuel this madness?

------
justtopost
The story would not exist if not plausible. Even the many of the experts who
dismiss the story say it is plausible.

I get that it is extrordinary, and requiring extrordinary proof as a result.
However, extraordinary is not at all the same as implausible. There are
examples of similar attacks in the wild, no matter how many orgs argue they
are not affected.

------
drtz
I gave up when I got to the section on munufacturability. The idea that a
package this size isn't big enough to house a large amount of digital logic is
just wrong.

------
ansible
So it seems to me that it is possible the original Bloomberg article may not
be true, or at least has gotten details considerably wrong.

In any event, I have a couple questions.

1\. Is it possible that some kind of small chip could subvert there boot
process of the BMC?

2\. Can the BMC subvert the host system in some useful way that would be hard
to detect? I'm thinking about altered microcode loaded at CPU powerup.

3\. Can the altered microcode be used to subvert the host complex remotely?
This could be something like a Spectre or Rowhammer attack.

~~~
jsjohnst
1\. Yes

2\. Highly Unlikely, but can’t be entirely disproven from what I’ve seen.

3\. See #2

------
jackconnor
"Bloomberg’s report describes an attack that is not possible at the companies
listed in the article."

------
mverwijs
> Bloomberg’s report describes an attack that is not possible at the companies
> listed in the article.

Assumptions. This article is full of them.

------
jmull
Frankly, I'm not going to read this article or evaluate its claims.

But it's interesting. Apple (mainly) and Amazon and a few others seems to have
successfully turned the narrative to the question of whether or not Bloomberg
got played.

At that point it seems like Bloomberg has to put forward something a lot more
concrete than "X anonymous sources told us so" or lose all credibility. (Or
they can retract, though at this point, after multiple double-downs, it would
would take a wholesale editorial clearout and significant time to return to
credibility.)

~~~
GeorgeTirebiter
If they could show us a compromised motherboard; and maybe even the Chinese
tiny chip?

