The Navy Bought Fake Chinese Microchips That Could Have Disarmed U.S. Missiles

[idaho]

Last year, the U.S. Navy bought 59,000 microchips for use in everything from missiles to transponders and all of them turned out to be counterfeits from China.


Wired reports the chips weren't only low-quality fakes, they had been made with a "back-door" and could have been remotely shut down at any time.

If left undiscovered the result could have rendered useless U.S. missiles and killed the signal from aircraft that tells everyone whether it's friend or foe.

Apparently foreign chip makers are often better at making cheap microchips and U.S. defense contractors are loathe to pass up the better deal.

The problem remains with these "trojan-horse" circuits that can be built into the chip and are almost impossible to detect -- especially without the original plans to compare them to.

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA) is now looking for ways to check the chips to make sure they haven't been hacked in the production process.

Expect to see a whole lot more funding directed to this goal. Or, considering IARPA is the research and development section of the intelligence community -- expect the money to be spent -- don't expect to see where.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/navy-chinese-microchips-weapons-could-have-been-shut-off-2011-6
WOT: green http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/businessinsider.com

[Bearcat]

Apparently foreign chip makers are often better at making cheap microchips and U.S. defense contractors are loathe to pass up the better deal.

Well, all I can say is that what is the point of spending billions of dollars on weapons systems and then trying to cut costs by using cheap, foreign microchips. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

[JayCub]

That's the billion dollar question Bear, how naive can they be... it's like buying a fast car and having no brakes..

[Bearcat]

That's the billion dollar question Bear, how naive can they be... it's like buying a fast car and having no brakes..

Unfortunately, this particular Navy is funded by my tax dollars and it makes me very angry when I see such gross incompetence like this.

[idaho]

Good point Bearcat, soo much money for development and then what? Cheap microchips from ebay? But still, U.S.Army is best Army in the world, that for sure!

[A Guy]

Gonna share this idaho, thanks

A Guy

[Ceyfer √]

Good point Bearcat, soo much money for development and then what? Cheap microchips from ebay? But still, U.S.Army is best Army in the world, that for sure!

That's highly subjective, technologically. superior yes! But even the Libyan rebels and the good old Vietcom guerillas were impressive in their own ways. Regarding with hardware backdoors, didn't they learn some great lessons from the cold war years?

[luffy]

US government is so farking up right now. This is the true.

[Bearcat]

US government is so farking up right now. This is the true.

You are exactly right luffy. The US gov't has run up a 14 trillion dollar debt and now they want to raise the debt ceiling so they can borrow even more. It makes me angry just thinking about it!

[INDRANIL]

O man bad news. I can realize you Bearcat.