In 2015, Amazon discovered that many of their AWS servers, made and assembled by Elemental Technologies, had micro-chips implanted on them. These micro-chips, which are much smaller than a penny and can rest easily within the tip of your pinky, are capable of intercepting and altering communications between the memory and CPU, and thus cause the operating system to be arbitrarily modified. These chips are believed to be part of the largest supply chain attack the U.S. has ever seen, impacting nearly 30 U.S. companies – including Amazon and Apple – as well as government intelligence agencies like the CIA. While the Chinese government has denied involvement in the attack, claiming that they are as much of a victim in the current cyberspace supply chain space, the current beliefs are that a unit in the People’s Liberation Army had carried out this sophisticated and complex attack.
