Hardware backdoor

It utilized coreboot to re-flash the BIOS with a SeaBIOS and iPXE-based bootkit composed of legitimate, open-source tools, allowing malware to be fetched from the internet during the boot process.

[1] The following year, in 2012, Sergei Skorobogatov and Christopher Woods from the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory reported the discovery of a backdoor in a military-grade FPGA device, which could be exploited to access and modify sensitive information.

[12] In 2013, researchers at the University of Massachusetts devised a method of breaking a CPU's internal cryptographic mechanisms by introducing specific impurities into the crystalline structure of transistors to change Intel's random-number generator.

[14][15] These tools include custom BIOS exploits that survive the reinstallation of operating systems and USB cables with spy hardware and radio transceiver packed inside.

[17][18] In September 2016 Skorobogatov showed how he had removed a NAND chip from an iPhone 5C - the main memory storage system used on many Apple devices - and cloned it so that he can try out more incorrect combinations than allowed by the attempt-counter.

[19] In October 2018 Bloomberg reported that an attack by Chinese spies reached almost 30 U.S. companies, including Amazon and Apple, by compromising America's technology supply chain.

[21] Researchers at the University of Southern California Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Photonic Science Division at the Paul Scherrer Institute have developed a new technique called Ptychographic X-ray laminography.