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[On a serious note, backdoored hardware has been a topic of discussion for years. In fact I’m surprised it took this long to (tentitively) find one.]

This isn’t something that can be ginned up by a bunch of script kiddies. This requires the cooperation of a subcontractor. Which means it is either a creature of the government, as in owned lock, stock and barrel, or wholly indemnified against financial losses upon discovery, because it is effectively out of business. This means government sponsorship to the tune of hundreds of millions or perhaps billions of dollars, presumably financed out of the profits from illicitly obtained foreign industrial know-how. Perhaps there’s a fee charged to all direct Chinese corporate beneficiaries either on a per transaction or a % of revenue basis.

“Which means it is either a creature of the government, as in owned lock, stock and barrel...”

That’s why I never buy anything from Lenovo!

Altering circuit boards with little outboard SMT modules is the cartoon stock-photo version, whereas a deep hardware backdoor might involve a few trace alterations on chip lithography masters. This would be potentially extremely hard to detect, and involves polishing a suspect chip down to the silicon circuitry for further analysis to find evidence of tampering.