The CISCO exploit is the way it would be done. . . not adding an obvious extra IC to a motherboard, but by seeding additional commands and software to the firmware which is far harder to locate and discover. . . leaving the firewall full of holes the bad actors can walk through at leisure. THAT is something we absolutely do have to be aware of and guard against, checking to assure that what should be in firmware and all chips existent on boards is what is supposed to be there and nothing more.
Something so obvious as this is a red herring that causes us to look elsewhere than where we SHOULD be looking. This is the magician's distraction, not the actual exploit we SHOULD be looking for.
My point in all this is that Bloomberg has a reputation of publishing ignorant FAKE NEWS before this. Bloomberg writers literally do not know what they are talking about as several of the real experts they were picking the brains of prior to writing the articles pointed out. . . and these experts kept telling them "Your theory makes no sense," yet they ran with it anyway and omitted that truth from their article. Their predilection to using anonymous sources without a second source as outlined in this article is common. They are a serial publisher of FAKE NEWS. So far, no other credible source outside of Bloomberg has published anything to back up Bloomberg's claims and multiple people and organizations in official statements in the companies involved and in national security agencies have denied that what Bloomberg stated ever occurred. In addition, several of Bloomberg's named source experts have claimed they were misquoted and cited out of context, with Bloomberg citing hypothetical explanations as descriptions of actual real events.
Those, I think, are dispositive that Bloomberg's writers made up a narrative that was mostly wishful thinking built on a STORY fed to them by a single source with a marketing plan, Yossi Appleboum and his company Sepio Systems, to sell their mitigation software for EXACTLY what Bloomberg describes.
Agree totally with your well done response
The Cisco exploit per the info I have seen was added to the units by a special team and to me it couples with the International conspiracy as well as the F7 algorithm mentioned in Q posts. There has to be a way to “split” data streams so that there is little to detect at the recipients end that the copy has been passed to the Black Hats and their devious practices
Stay Vigilant Swordmaker, they are on the run
WWG1WGA