LOS ANGELES, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Information technology giant Supermicro has sent a letter to its customers earlier this week saying third-party investigation found no evidence of "malicious chips" on its motherboards claimed by a Bloomberg Businessweek report.
Xinhua reached the San Jose-based company on Thursday and was provided the letter, co-signed by Supermicro President and CEO Charles Liang, Senior Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer David Weigand, and Senior Vice President and Chief Product Officer Raju Penumatcha.
"Recent reports in the media wrongly alleged that bad actors had inserted a malicious chip or other hardware on our products during our manufacturing process," the letter said.
"Because the security and integrity of our products is our highest priority, we undertook a thorough investigation with the assistance of a leading, third-party investigations firm," it added.
According to the letter, a representative sample was tested, including the specific type of motherboard depicted and those purchased by companies referenced in the article, as well as the more recently manufactured.
Insiders told Xinhua the third-party agency is Nardello & Co, a global investigations firm which handles issues including the FCPA/UK Bribery Act and other corruption-related investigations, asset tracing, computer forensics as well as reputational due diligence.
The letter reiterated that no government agency or customers has ever contacted the company about malicious hardware and not evidence has been found.
It said the announcement should lay to rest the unwarranted accusations of Supermicro's motherboards.
On Oct. 4, Bloomberg Businessweek published a story alleging that about 30 U.S. companies were compromised after their servers were implanted so-called "malicious chips" by China during the manufacturing process.
The report alleged Apple and Amazon were among the victims. But both Apple and Amazon issued multiple denials, urging Bloomberg to retract its story.
