Homeland Security, the famous American federal agency that deals with ensuring national security, made an extremely important announcement over the weekend regarding the Apple company and iCloud. More specifically, Homeland Security representatives stated that there is no doubt that Apple's iCloud servers were not spied on by Chinese hackers to access the data that the company's customers stored there.
Homeland Security basically confirms exactly what Apple said, i.e. the fact that the servers bought from the Supermicro company were not "infected" by the Chinese with a special chip that allowed them to access the data stored there. Homeland Security also supports the statements of other American companies who said exactly the same thing, so they defend everyone in front of American journalists who say exactly the opposite, but without any "official" coverage.
HOMELAND SECURITY: IMPORTANT Announcement for HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of People
Homeland Security has a surprising intervention in this dispute, and this may raise some question marks regarding the veracity of the statements made so far by American journalists. Practically, Homeland Security's intervention could be a confirmation of the fact that the Chinese actually accessed the company's servers, and now everyone officially denies the problem in order not to show the world how fragile the US national security protection really is.
"The Department of Homeland Security is aware of the media reports of a technology supply chain compromise. Like our partners in the UK, the National Cyber Security Centre, at this time we have no reason to doubt the statements from the companies named in the story. Information and communications technology supply chain security is core to DHS's cybersecurity mission and we are committed to the security and integrity of the technology on which Americans and others around the world increasingly rely. Just this month – National Cybersecurity Awareness Month – we launched several government-industry initiatives to develop near- and long-term solutions to manage risk posed by the complex challenges of increasingly global supply chains. These initiatives will build on existing partnerships with a wide range of technology companies to strengthen our nation's collective cybersecurity and risk management efforts."
Homeland Security should calm the rest of the American media with the statements it makes, but unfortunately this casts an even bigger shadow on the truth regarding what happened to the companies' servers. Having said that, it will be interesting to see what will happen in the end in this whole scandal, but I think that, despite what Homeland Security and Apple said, the servers of some companies were spied on by the Chinese, and that the problem is much bigger than it seems.
