Hacker News Reader

Comment by kevin_thibedeau | Hacker News Reader

The supposed infiltrated part is a six terminal RF device. Not something that would ordinarily show up on a server motherboard. In any case, Joe Fitzpatrick has already disclosed that he used the part merely as an example and Jordan Robertson expanded that into a work of fiction.

View on HN

I hadn't seen this before, but searching for "Joe Fitzpatrick Jordan Robertson" finds https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/10/08/security-research... which seems to be what you were referring to?

The original source is Joe Fitzpatrick's interview with the Risky Business infosec podcast. Apple Insider is just summarizing some of the points from that interview:

https://risky.biz/RB517_feature/

Where is the 6-terminal claim from?

The original Bloomberg article features images of a 6-terminal chip.

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i0hZ31udMZ_...

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i9VdsjZLS_P...

There were quite a few pictures of what is supposed to be the device in the Bloomberg article. Knowing what they say it looks like and knowing roughly where to look I'm 99.9% sure that none of the boards I have here have that device on them.

I don't have the reference handy but someone claimed to be a source and they pointed to a generic item on digikey / mouser as an example. I imagine that it got extrapolated by Bloomberg into that.

They really have no idea what they are talking about at this time and it's probably fluff.

I'm not sure why you're downvoted, except the lack of citation. Your recollection is correct, it's from the Joe Fitzpatrick interview with Risky Business, which was quoted by Apple Insider. (Fitzpatrick was named as a source in the original Bloomberg article.)

Long story short, that photo does not show the device involved.

"Robertson was unable to produce photographic evidence of the chips in question, saying they were described to him by protected sources. Indeed, Robertson in September asked Fitzpatrick what a "signal amplifier or coupler" looks like, suggesting the publication narrowed the attack package down to that particular component. Fitzpatrick sent Robertson a link to a very small signal coupler sold by Mouser Electronics. "Turns out that's the exact coupler in all the images in the story," Fitzpatrick said.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/10/08/security-research...

The image caption on the bloomberg story reads "Microchips found on altered motherboards in some cases looked like signal conditioning couplers". They didn't claim "that's the chip"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com