Great Articles on Supply Chain Security

This last week saw two great new articles on supply chain security in two different industries: the first from Wired Magazine on the casino gaming industry, and the second from Dark Reading on the data breaches in various defense company networks through security authentication devices.

CPU Tech Welcomes Kevin Kirk as New Anti-Tamper Executive Agent

Effective this week, current Anti-Tamper Executive Agent for the Department of Defense Ernie Haendschke will be moving on to a new office of responsibility. Taking his place as the director of SAF/AQLS and effective/interim Anti-Tamper Executive Agent will be Kevin Kirk, who has worked previously in LO/CLO (Low Observable, Counter Low Observable) support and coordination of foreign military sales.

CPU Tech would like to thank Ernie for his time, effort, and representation of the Anti-Tamper technology area over the last few years, and welcome Kevin in his new set of responsibilities.

Counterfeit Chips Traced to Weapon Programs

Last week, Wired Magazine reported on the findings regarding a large number of counterfeit military IC’s purchased from the company VisionTech by the US Navy. Business Insider published a similar article with slightly more alarmist leanings. Both articles discuss the worst-case scenario: foreign installed ‘Trojan Horses’ found in counterfeit ICs that have self-destruct timers or watch for specific input triggers to stop working (‘Kill Switches’).

Where is ‘Export Control Reform’ at?

Cutting and pasting below some remarks this morning from Andrew Shapiro at the Defense Trade Advisory Group. He doesn’t give a lot of detail, other than to say ‘We’re working on it.’

CPU Tech Discusses ‘PUF’ Technologies

Those familiar with CPU Tech know that the company does not publicly discuss the specific techniques and technologies used in the Secure Processor or the Secure Design Environment. However, today Military Embedded Systems published an article submitted by CPU Tech discussing a very specific set of technologies that can be used for silicon security, and some conclusions about how the technology should be used.

Highlighting our Software Security Partners

Practically all of CPU Tech’s press releases last year are about compatibility with secure operating systems and software providers. That has not changed this year.

Following up on previous posts on this blog about promoting our work with Flexera Software and Mocana, two more links are now available on the front page of CPU Tech’s website.

Leveraging Flexera Software’s Entitlement Management for Supply Chain Security

In this interview with Flexera Software, at their Software Summit last Fall, we explain how we are using entitlement management in our Acalis Sentry Security Server to partition security design and provide a unique supply chain solution to our customers.

Adding an ‘Anti-Counterfeiting Executive Agent’ Fails to Make 2011 Defense Authorization Bill

The headline on InsideDefense.com last week was that the provision to add a Supply Chain Executive Agent to address counterfeiting was dropped from the Defense Authorization Bill.

This means it is still everyone’s problem . . . and no one person’s.

Sometimes the ‘Good Guys’ Use Malware, Too

This is the first confirmation that the Stuxnet virus completely shut down some nuclear enrichment in Iran.

IEEE Security and Privacy Article: Configuring Secure Processors

At the risk of a bit of ‘vanity blogging’, CPU Tech has just published an article in the IEEE Journal for Security and Privacy. IEEE members can access the article for free, or the abstract and purchase information can be reached at this link.