Liz Young of The Wall Street Journal reports the path of thousands of exploding devices targeting Hezbollah remains murky, highlighting what experts say are risks in electronics supply chains. Young writes:
The attacks on Hezbollah this week using explosives planted inside electronics highlight the risks and vulnerabilities of technology supply chains, experts say.
“Every board, every CEO, government, has now woken up today to the fact that products that we buy could be compromised,” said Bindiya Vakil, chief executive of supply-chain risk management firm Resilinc. “This is weaponizing of the supply chain.”
The supply chain trail behind Israel’s attack that began with exploding pagers remains murky, and the explosions of a range of electronics add to the questions around the origins of the devices that wreaked havoc across Lebanon, killing dozens and injuring thousands.
Many electronics manufacturers outsource production of relatively low-cost items such as pagers, which experts say makes it difficult to track and verify the source of each piece within the final product. Companies often ship their designs for devices off to contract manufacturers who handle sourcing the components and assembly of the final goods. […]
The investigation uncovered instances where cranes came with cellular modems installed without the knowledge of port authorities and done so beyond the scope of contracts with the China-based manufacturer of the cranes, ZPMC.
The congressional report said the technology could be used remotely to interfere with U.S. infrastructure.
Read more here.
