Globalization and business transformation have created an incredibly complex worldwide supply chain for almost all manufacturers. Hardware ostensibly manufactured in the U.S. will inevitably include components manufactured in many different locations around the world -- including nations that are in other circumstances described as 'adversary states'.
The potential for interference in the supply chain, by foreign governments or criminal gangs, exists. An example of this threat was seen in the October 2018 Bloomberg report, "The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies". This report claims that a unit of the People's Liberation Army were involved in an operation that placed tiny spy chips on equipment manufactured in China for US-based Super Micro Computer Inc (SMC).
The report has been largely discredited in security circles, but Bloomberg has refused to remove it. True or fabricated, it is a graphic example of western fears of hardware supply chain attacks. If it were true, every subsequently manufactured SMC computer would have been delivered pre-compromised by the Chinese government.
U.S. manufacturers all attempt to protect their own supply chains. Intel, which developed its own Transparent Supply Chain set of policies, has now gone one step further. "The industry needs an end-to-end framework that can be applied across [the] multi-year life of any platform," it announced today. "And that is our goal with the Compute Lifecycle Assurance Initiative - to substantially improve transparency and to provide higher levels of assurance that improve integrity, resilience and security during the entire platform lifecycle."
Intel says it has identified four key lifecycle stages: build, transfer, operate and retire. It commits itself, over the next year, to build on its Transparent Supply Chain ..
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