Apple moves to bring iCloud infrastructure in-house predicated by backdoor fears - report
Apple's multi-year effort to develop its own servers and networking hardware has reportedly been driven in large part by security concerns, as the company worries that supply chain tampering may lead to deeply embedded vulnerabilities which are difficult to find and remediate.
National Security Agency personnel are shown delicately opening a Cisco box to add malware to the device within after intercepting it during shipping
Apple's fears center around the possibility that infrastructure equipment could be intercepted by third parties between the time it leaves the manufacturer and the time it arrives at Apple's datacenters, according to The Information. The company believes that malicious actors could be adding new or modified components that would enable unauthorized access.
This fear is said to have been a primary driver of the company's strategy to move as much infrastructure design as possible in-house. The gargantuan size of such a task -- Apple's cloud services serve tens of billions of requests each day -- has led to delays in reducing its reliance on outside service providers like Google and Amazon.
Unfortunately, Apple's worries are not unfounded.
While it may never be known who the targets were, information revealed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden revealed the existence of government programs designed to do exactly the thing Apple fears.
The National Security Agency's Tailored Operations Access unit was, and may still be, tasked with redirecting shipments of servers and routers headed for targeted organizations to government facilities. The packages would be opened, compromised firmware installed, and then the packages re-sealed and delivered.
One NSA manager described the program as "some of the most productive operations in TAO because they pre-position access points into hard target networks around the world."
Photos which accompanied the leaks showed intelligence agency workers modifying Cisco gear, infuriating the networking giant. Cisco later announced that it would address shipments to empty houses to avoid government tracking.
Apple's data center in Maiden, N.C.
"We ship [boxes] to an address that's has nothing to do with the customer, and then you have no idea who ultimately it is going to," Cisco security chief John Stewart said at last year's CiscoLive 2015 conference.
"When customers are truly worried... it causes other issues to make [interception] more difficult in that [agencies] don't quite know where that router is going, so it's very hard to target - you'd have to target all of them. There is always going to be inherent risk."
Apple is said to have gone to extreme lengths to verify the integrity of products it receives, even comparing photographs of motherboards with explanations of each component and its function.
"You can't go take an X-Ray of every computer that hits the floor. You want to make sure there's no extracurricular activity" by building servers in-house, one source told the publication.
National Security Agency personnel are shown delicately opening a Cisco box to add malware to the device within after intercepting it during shipping
Apple's fears center around the possibility that infrastructure equipment could be intercepted by third parties between the time it leaves the manufacturer and the time it arrives at Apple's datacenters, according to The Information. The company believes that malicious actors could be adding new or modified components that would enable unauthorized access.
This fear is said to have been a primary driver of the company's strategy to move as much infrastructure design as possible in-house. The gargantuan size of such a task -- Apple's cloud services serve tens of billions of requests each day -- has led to delays in reducing its reliance on outside service providers like Google and Amazon.
Unfortunately, Apple's worries are not unfounded.
While it may never be known who the targets were, information revealed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden revealed the existence of government programs designed to do exactly the thing Apple fears.
The National Security Agency's Tailored Operations Access unit was, and may still be, tasked with redirecting shipments of servers and routers headed for targeted organizations to government facilities. The packages would be opened, compromised firmware installed, and then the packages re-sealed and delivered.
One NSA manager described the program as "some of the most productive operations in TAO because they pre-position access points into hard target networks around the world."
Photos which accompanied the leaks showed intelligence agency workers modifying Cisco gear, infuriating the networking giant. Cisco later announced that it would address shipments to empty houses to avoid government tracking.
Apple's data center in Maiden, N.C.
"We ship [boxes] to an address that's has nothing to do with the customer, and then you have no idea who ultimately it is going to," Cisco security chief John Stewart said at last year's CiscoLive 2015 conference.
"When customers are truly worried... it causes other issues to make [interception] more difficult in that [agencies] don't quite know where that router is going, so it's very hard to target - you'd have to target all of them. There is always going to be inherent risk."
Apple is said to have gone to extreme lengths to verify the integrity of products it receives, even comparing photographs of motherboards with explanations of each component and its function.
"You can't go take an X-Ray of every computer that hits the floor. You want to make sure there's no extracurricular activity" by building servers in-house, one source told the publication.
Comments
Interesting that some old scriptures written over 2,000 years ago referred to this stuff happening in the world at a time in the future. How did they know?
Such malware could easily bypass encryption as it would provide the actual pass codes.
Thumbprint authentication is a way around the issue, but keystrokes are always the backup.
It is a whole new world where search warrants and court orders are no longer needed. And for governments to require back doors only compromises the systems for nearly all, putting secure encryption only into the hands of the criminals.
I believe that has to change if they want to control - which is something they care for even more - their world.
Mark this: Security is not just end to end encryption. This article just proves security is end-to-end control over ones business.
And in subcontracting, one loses control over one's business, trying to frame such control with compliance contracts.
Because of this, the anal.ists and bought out media have argued that is almost just a hardware company as it has given most of the services and software for others to create. I feel the hardware and few basic software supplies to be like a really slim body needs to bulk up with the muscle coming from services, content and Apps.
In terms of their server farms, it is very odd they don't even come up with a specific rack server of their own, build it up, control the entire process, make server farms ones of their products could even outsource to others. Why not create a department for that.
The thing is, tries to stay startup like basic as much as possible but I believe a company that has achieved this much of a scale needs to adapt and grow its way of conducting business and not just focus on going for a entry level price point of one of their products. , should they want to survive and thrive long term, needs serious internal changes/restructuring, give up its attachment to its old ways, not give up on them but evolve them without losing the original spirit.
For example, besides the obvious in-your-face server farm issue, it could just create a new content-services department and either buy out Time Warner Inc and restructure it, selling off what is useless, or start its own content production like Netflix is doing, putting its money in competent professionals. Jobs created Pixar, it almost bought out Disney, Laurene Powell Jobs has huge control over that company, it's not that they don't have any expertise or connections in the area. Get Spielberg, Lucas, Wachowski brothers, irreverent people making content. Apple is so badly served by the manipulated media, it would do them really good to get powered up in the area - Time Warner Inc has newspapers, etc. But no, they don't want to get out of their old core business so Apple has been stuck for years with the hobby TV, incapable of launching its one cord-cutting service, just plain ol stuck for years on end, with an aging movie selling iTunes business model that has proven how far it goes and is stuck, just stuck.
If is unable to reinvent itself and grow its structure to accompany it's behemoth numbers growth it's not going to thrive for long.
Apple needs to "get" that its core business is not the Mac evolved into iPhone or even hardware but designing-revolutionizing-reinventing industries-processes-lifestyles, delivering the well designed product-service-processes to the masses that now worship and follow its lead.