Chapter 970 Stirring the Stock Market

How many mobile phones using Qualcomm chips are there in the world?

According to statistics, there are billions.

Qualcomm is the main chip supplier for HTC, Sony, Nokia, MOTO, LG, Samsung and other global brands of smartphones. Most smartphones of Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, Huawei, ZTE and other manufacturers also use Snapdragon processors.

Qualcomm is the world's largest provider of mobile phone processing chips, accounting for 70% of the market share. Now that Qualcomm chips have problems, it will not only involve Qualcomm, but will affect the entire industry chain.

In fact, there is a problem with the chip, doesn't Qualcomm know about it?

No, they know.

Some exist because of design flaws. Defects can never be avoided. They can only be perfected, or used to adapt to the environment at the time. God is not perfect, let alone a chip designed by humans.

The other is that these companies will intentionally or unintentionally leave some back doors during production and design, some of which are reserved for added functions, because many of a chip provides support for multiple environments, such as mobile phone chips, which can also be used in set-top boxes. , Car signal exchange, etc., and generally these functions will not be used.

Just like a house, there are several doors, some doors are open for hardware use, some doors are locked, and the door key is in the hands of the chip manufacturer. Without customers knowing, chip manufacturers can use these doors Come and do your own thing, it's called the back door.

the next day.

The "Hall Institute" once again announced the research results on Qualcomm chips, and this report immediately attracted great attention and was reported on the global news and on the Internet.

After seeing this report, many chip research institutions immediately conducted experiments on the problems mentioned in the article.

This report has no emotional text, only piles of letters and symbols, and a conclusion.

"Snapdragon 855, Snapdragon 845~ to ~IPQ8064, IPQ8074, a total of 41 chips, all of which have loopholes, involving "errors" in the underlying code."

"For example, vulnerability No. 7 in the list can be exploited by hackers to automatically install software for users. If the vulnerability is exploited by fraudsters, criminals can easily grasp your credit card and electronic payment passwords and transfer all your money at any time."

"For example, the No. 11 vulnerability in the list can collect the user's personal privacy information through the camera and microphone, and monitor the user's call content."

"For example, the No. 23 vulnerability in the list can collect mobile phone user address books, photos, short messages, etc., and actively locate users."

"."

"It is worth noting that these vulnerabilities are design flaws that existed after the chip was manufactured and cannot be repaired by software. These vulnerabilities have existed for more than 5 years. The above-mentioned issues involve user privacy and property security, and are worth all. people pay attention."

When this report came out, many people were shocked.

It turns out that I am so transparent, I am under other people's cells all the time, so there is no such thing as privacy, my mobile phone can reveal all my secrets, it just depends on whether others are willing to touch me.

"Has our personal privacy been leaked?"

"Is our money insured?"

Many people have this question.

certainly. Some people also questioned this report, if there are so many problems with Qualcomm's chips, why didn't other research institutions discover them? This is unscientific.

But not long after such doubts, another internationally renowned research institution came forward. A well-known British chip research institution announced that it had tested some of the vulnerabilities mentioned in the article and found that these vulnerabilities existed and could be exploited. , indicating that the loopholes mentioned in the article are real, and there are indeed huge problems with Qualcomm chips.

It is worth mentioning that this well-known chip research institution is a joint research team of a British chip manufacturer.

In addition, some other chip companies also stood up, "Through the team's inspection, it was found that some of Qualcomm's chips do have loopholes, but it is not yet possible to determine whether these loopholes are design flaws or man-made."

"Unlike software, it is very easy to open the back door of the chip, and it is related to national defense and security issues. Earlier, a country deployed a missile system in Syria, and suddenly found that the missile system was controlled. It was finally found out that the chip had a loophole."

Many companies point the finger at Qualcomm.

Affected by these reports, Qualcomm's stock price was greatly impacted and began to fall rapidly. It fell by more than 5% in a very short period of time, triggering the circuit breaker mechanism to stop trading, and resumed trading 15 minutes later. However, the downward trend became more and more fierce, directly triggering the second Fuse for the first time, shut down for 1 hour.

These situations caused panic among stockholders, and more people participated in the sell-off. After the market opened an hour later, Qualcomm's stock plummeted until it fell by 20%, and the suspension mechanism for the day was activated.

Not only that, many companies that use Qualcomm chips have also been affected by this and their stock prices have fallen.

An article caused shocks in the stock market, chip high-tech stocks fell across the board, and the investment of countless investors was affected.

Affected by this, Dow Jones high-tech stocks in the United States and Nasdaq stocks also fell across the board.

Numerous news reports broke out on the Internet:

"The chip terror strikes, all your information may have been leaked, and everything about you is transparent."

"Chip backdoors are everywhere."

"Design flaws are still artificial, and it's scary to think about it."

Qualcomm was suddenly hit by such a powerful head-on blow, and almost breathless. The high-level executives immediately held a meeting, launched emergency public relations, and held a press conference.

Max Ned, vice president of Qualcomm, stood on the stage and said to the reporter, "As for the recent reports about Qualcomm chips, there are many suspicions of exaggeration. What we want to say is that the chips produced by our company are the fastest and most efficient chips in the world. At the beginning of the design, many chips are multi-purpose general-purpose chips, which reserve links for other devices, which is not a design defect."

"Qualcomm attaches great importance to customer security issues, and our company is even less likely to steal user information. We have been making unremitting efforts to address system vulnerabilities, and we thank all walks of life for their attention and concern. At the same time, the company announced a A program called the "Vulnerability Reward Program", whoever discovers chip vulnerabilities and proposes a reasonable improvement plan, will receive a high reward from Qualcomm."

After the vice president finished speaking, countless reporters immediately raised their hands to ask questions.

"Excuse me, do you mean by saying that there are indeed loopholes in Qualcomm's chips, which may bring great hidden dangers to users' safe use?"

"Excuse me, the report of the "Hall Research Laboratory" said that your chip has been finalized after manufacture, and you cannot use software to fill in the loopholes. Is this true?"

The vice president was speechless when he was asked, cursing the unit called "Hall Research Laboratory" in his heart, and wanted to say, am I him? Thank you for your concern for us.

"There is no question-and-answer session at this press conference. Thank you, everyone. Goodbye."

The vice president of Qualcomm fled.

Originally, Qualcomm wanted to explain, telling users that its chips are safe and reliable, and the best chips in the world, but the effect of the press conference was not good. After the press conference, there were more comments on the Internet.

"Qualcomm admitted that there are vulnerabilities in the chip and launched the "bug bounty program" at the same time. It may be too late to remedy the situation."

"For design flaws, Qualcomm's explanation is to reserve links for other devices, but these links have become an important channel for hackers to grasp our information, who will guarantee the security and privacy of users."

"Qualcomm can't do anything, and the press conference has become a joke."

Inside a game studio in Mexico.

Jiang Hao and Johnson sat on soft chairs, looking at the big red bars of Qualcomm stock, and they happily smoked cigars.

Unlike Chinese stocks, China is red up and green down, while the United States is green up and red down.

"It plummeted by 20%, and the circuit breaker mechanism was triggered three times. Now Qualcomm is in serious trouble. It directly evaporated 17 billion U.S. dollars. It is estimated that Qualcomm's executives and shareholders are about to collapse." Johnson said with a smile.

"This is the case with high-tech companies. A new technology, a monopoly technology, can make the company's market value skyrocket, but once there is a problem with the product, an avalanche is inevitable."

"Just like Yahoo, which was one of the pioneers of the Internet back then, and its market value once reached 128 billion US dollars. From 2000 to 2006, it has been ranking first in the global Internet rankings. During this period, he had the opportunity to acquire Google. The acquisition of Facebook, but what happened in the end, the ending was sold to the US communications giant Verizon for US$4.8 billion, and in the end even the name was not kept, and it ended sadly.”

"Internet high-tech companies add value fast, but they are like a flower in the water, and they are extremely beautiful at the time, but if they really touch their core areas, the light ones will have ripples, and the heavy ones may disappear. Only such strong fluctuations can This is our chance to make a lot of money." Jiang Hao said with a smile.

"How far do you think Qualcomm will fall?" Johnson asked.

"I still have two punches, and we'll end it when I hit it. No one can predict the bottom point, so we'll end it when it's good." Jiang Hao said.

A businessman must be greedy, because this is the biggest motivation for a businessman. A businessman cannot be greedy. People who do not know how to control themselves because of greed will die miserably in the end, especially in the stock market.

You will never be able to understand the turbulence and cunning of the stock market, there are too many variables.

At the opening of the next day, Qualcomm's stock price continued to decline, and the speed slowed down after falling by 3 points. At this time, the mysterious "Hall Institute" issued another document.

"There is evidence that Qualcomm should have participated in the "Prism" program and provided customer information to the US Security Agency, because there is a Qualcomm chip backdoor, and the Security Agency can obtain your email data, video and voice conversations, videos, photos at any time , VoIP conversations, file transfers, login notifications, and social networking details."

The Hall Institute detonated another nuclear bomb.