China hack: Chinese official avoids questions about chip hack report
A Chinese government spokesman has sidestepped questions about a report that its spies inserted chips into computer equipment that might allow them to hack into U.S. companies and government agencies.
The spokesman, Lu Kang, responded to questions Monday from reporters by directing them to statements by the equipment supplier and customers including Apple and Amazon. Those companies denied any knowledge the equipment had been altered.
Lu said, "Do you feel that you still need China to respond to these statements?"
Bloomberg News cited unidentified U.S. officials as saying malicious chips were inserted into equipment supplied by Super Micro Computer Inc. to American companies and government agencies.
Bloomberg said the components included code that caused the products to accept changes to their software and to connect to outside computers.
Separately, Apple's top security officer told lawmakers that the computing giant has found no evidence that it was a victim of an attack, according to Reuters.
"Apple's proprietary security tools are continuously scanning for precisely this kind of outbound traffic, as it indicates the existence of malware or other malicious activity. Nothing was ever found," George Stathakopouloshe, vice president for information security at Apple, wrote in a letter cited by the publication.
