Navy acquires trusted computing risk-assessment tool to help safeguard microelectronics supply chain

July 30, 2020
Microelectronics are the core of DOD’s vast hardware-based networks and can cause major problems if they are faulty or compromised by adversaries.

INDIANAPOLIS – The small computer chips in just about everything from weapon systems to IT platforms often take a long and winding supply chain journey before joining Department of Defense networks. Fedscoop reports. Continue reading original article

The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:

30 July 2020 -- So the Navy has acquired a supply chain risk assessment tool from KSM Consulting in Indianapolis for quick analysis of its microelectronics and to serve as an example in monitoring broad supply chains for IT-related products.

To determine if a microelectronics product is safe for the Navy’s networks, analysts pore over documents that show if a company is vulnerable to adversary influence. Much of that requires collecting financial records, public data and private information held by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) -- a process that on average takes around 80 hours of work.

The trusted-computing tool was acquired by Naval Surface Warfare Center-Crane Division in Crane, Ind., and is called the Automated Microelectronics Analysis & Reporting Optimization (AMARO) solution. It uses natural language processing to gather public and private information on companies in the microelectronics supply chain and extract important text to enable analysts to determine a company’s supply chain trustworthiness.

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John Keller, chief editor
Military & Aerospace Electronics

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