Could spies actually insert malicious chips into computer circuit boards? A manufacturing expert says it’s possible

Anna-Katrina Shedletsky

Instrumental’s CEO, Anna-Katrina Shedletsky, spoke with Kif Leswing at Business Insider to share her expertise on the plausibility that “spy chips” could be inserted into a brand’s circuit board without the design team knowing (or noticing). Bloomberg’s explosive article claiming that “spy chips” had been found on the server boards of top U.S. companies has led many to ask, regardless of whether this particular allegation is true, whether it’s even possible.

In the article, Anna suggests that looking for something that shouldn’t be there is a similar problem to detecting counterfeit parts and defective parts. At Instrumental, we call that class of problems dark yield, because they are often not caught and instead subsequently yielded from the factory and end up in customer hands. Instrumental technology is the only product on the market that can detect dark yield issues.

Anna believes that easily searchable, high-resolution digital photos of circuit boards, one Instrumental’s main products, will become increasingly important as companies implement more controls on the supply chain.​ — KIF LESWING, BUSINESS INSIDER

Read the full article here.