Ten months ago, the American news agency Bloomberg published a sensational story claiming that Chinese spies had corrupted the tech supply chain and installed small chips on motherboards which were supplied to the American company Supermicro Computer. Despite being met by a storm of denial, the likes of which is rarely seen, Bloomberg has neither retracted nor corrected the yarn till today.

Apparently undeterred by strong criticism of a supply chain attack story it published last week, Bloomberg has put out another yarn, dealing with a similar theme, this time about a "major US telecommunications company" that allegedly encountered doctored hardware made by the US company Supermicro Computer.

The Bloomberg story, claiming chips are being implanted by a Chinese contractor on server motherboards sold by US firm Supermicro Computer and being used to spy on some companies, will benefit reporters Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley — who wrote it — if it holds up under scrutiny.