[doctorsher]

It depends what you mean by "drop the whole thing." The latest reporting I saw with fresh conclusions is from the Washington Post in late November [0]. Essentially, Bloomberg sent out a reporter completely independent of the Big Hack article to ascertain whether or not it was accurate. Additionally, Apple did a secondary investigation to see if their senior director of information security had written any internal documents about the Big Hack -- no such documents existed, corroborating their initial denial. So both Apple and Bloomberg have taken additional steps since the original article was published. However, in terms of public statements, it does seem that they have dropped it.

Pertinent quotes from the article [0]: "The goal of this effort, Elgin told the potential source, was to get to 'ground truth'; if Elgin heard from 10 or so sources that 'The Big Hack' was itself a piece of hackery, he would send that message up his chain of command. The potential source told Elgin that the denials of 'The Big Hack' were '100 percent right.'"

"According to the potential source, Elgin also asked about the possibility that Peter Ziatek, senior director of information security at Apple, had written a report regarding a hardware hack affecting Apple. In an interview with the Erik Wemple Blog, Ziatek says that he’d never written that report, nor is he aware of such a document. Following the publication of Bloomberg’s story, Apple conducted what it calls a 'secondary' investigation surrounding its awareness of events along the lines of what was alleged in 'The Big Hack.' That investigation included a full pat-down of Ziatek’s own electronic communications. It found nothing to corroborate the claims in the Bloomberg story, according to Ziatek."

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/11/...