Would the Mob Really Break Your Virtual Kneecaps With Counterfeit Chips?

It’s easy to infiltrate a semiconductor chip supply chain with counterfeits. The path from the original manufacturer to the final use is notoriously weak, especially for older chip models, which are often needed for military applications. There are different types of counterfeits: they can be falsely labeled, used, broken, actual fakes, or, as we are told this week, hacked to a specific purpose by the mob.

In a blog post Tuesday, two executives from IOActive, a computer and information security company, posited that the mob could easily enter the realm of chip counterfeiting and sell insidiously hacked chips with devastating results. [Read More]