3 ms·
> The system uses optical scans, microscopy, X-ray tomography, and artificial intelligence to compare a printed circuit board and its chips and components with
by maltalex 8y ago
> The system uses optical scans, microscopy, X-ray tomography, and artificial intelligence to compare a printed circuit board and its chips and components with the intended design.
Could it detect a change within a chip? If not, then it makes such an attack harder to execute, but not impossible. Especially for a nation state.
- Cthulhu_ 8y agoThey could do spot checks where they remove the cap and compare pictures, but it's rather eh. Maybe testing could work? Hook it up to a testing device and have it run through a suite of tests not known by the manufacturer, as well as fuzzing tests. They might find additional bugs in their own design as well that way.
- TickleSteve 8y agoI would have thought it would actually easier to subvert the supply chain than physically mount a new device on a board. Simply supply 'alternate' devices for normal manufacture.
- kop316 8y agoThe issue is that X-rays can only scan down to a certain feature size (its minimum resolution is directly related to its wavelength). There is research going into it, this article would interest you: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21698 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21698 Its the only article I know if that nondestructively can imagine a chip.
- rasz 8y agoNo, none of those will detect a change in silicon. Only options are signal analysis on working system and/or decapping, scanning and comparing all the masks.