A group of Democratic U.S. Senators are calling on the Trump Administration to look into reports of Chinese government efforts to secretly manipulate U.S. technology.
The request is in response to an Oct. 4 article in Bloomberg Businessweek that said the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “designed and manufactured” microchips to be secretly planted within the motherboards of servers assembled by Super Micro Computer Inc., also called Supermicro.
The story claims that Elemental Technologies, which has contracts to sell technology to U.S. national security agencies, installed these motherboards in servers that were ultimately used by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense. Some 30 companies were also affected by this, according to the article.
“If true, the U.S. government servers, networks, and the sensitive information they contain could be compromised by a country that poses a significant strategic challenge to the United States. Additionally, any malicious PLA effort could have severe implications for the privacy of data for American consumers purchasing products from American technology firms,” the senators wrote.
The letter was signed by Sens. Edward Markey (D-MA), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Ranking Member of its East Asia Subcommittee, Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV).
The senators asked the Administration to provide information on the extent of U.S. government ownership of technology with Chinese government microchips and whether these devices are still in use. They also would like any information about these microchips being implanted in technology that is used by U.S. companies.