The headlines are somewhat over-the-top, but none of those articles show examples of them deliberately making up a story.

I wouldn't read it, because they seem to repeatedly overstate the possible impact of their stories. But if you work in the space, or are the victim of an attack, this thread-level-orange style of writing may feel entirely appropriate.

It's no different than, say, insinuating that something is wrong with <x>. But instead of clearly explaining the criticism, to "let smart people figure it out for themselves". That's the laziest conspiracy sales tactic, and it exploits peoples' insecurities by tying the carrot ("I'm one of the smart ones!") to the stick of accepting whatever theory is being peddled.

hmmm... definitely a trend of reporting on hacks. And perhaps with sensationalist clickbait headlines.

But they are confirmed hacks (Equifax, FB, Cambridge Analytica).

In this case, there's relatively little ground for misunderstanding or exaggeration. There's either a malicious chip or there's not. I suppose in the "worst case" scenario, there could be a malicious chip, but some other government than the Chinese put it there.

However, reading the statement from the Chinese government in response to this story, which never actually denies the incident and instead complains about being victim to such hardware hacking themselves, that's not the impression I get: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-04/the-big-h...