IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - September/October 2021 - 31

available by OEMs to identify counterfeit products
as well as ensuring that purchases are
made from reputable and well-known sources
(to avoid purchasing them in the first place).
These mitigations require human intervention
and are prone to human error (e.g., misreading
or misinterpreting).
" Hard " mitigations ideally would allow for
Figure 1. Authentic Intel flash memory IC (left) and
its counterfeit replica (right).13
(SHIELD) initiative.14 The goal of the SHIELD program
is to eliminate counterfeit ICs from the
electronics supply chain. Understandably, if a counterfeit
IC were to make its way into a multimillion
dollar piece of military equipment it could cause
irreparable harm, not only potential mission failure
but the loss of life. SHIELD is intended to defend
against not onlymalfunctions from counterfeit hardware,
but also more sophisticated security-oriented
concerns such as theft or modification of IP and
implanted ICs (i.e., hardware trojans).
In July of 2020, Wired reported that a large corporation
had discovered they had been purchasing
and deploying counterfeit networking equipment15.
After a routine firmware update rendered a portion
of their devices inoperable, they had asked a thirdparty
cybersecurity firm to investigate. Upon initial
inspection, they had found some immediate visual
signs of counterfeit: misalignment of labels and
absence of holographic stickers. After further
inspection of the circuit boards, they noticed the
presence of an extra IC which, they determined,
was used to circumvent an authentication mechanism
in the firmware designed to prevent itself
from running or booting onmodified or illegitimate
hardware. The corporation's primary concern, and
cause for alarm, was the potential for a malicious IC
that would have had access to their entire network.
The networking gear they had purchased was relatively
inexpensive which only added to their concern
as this had shown that even inexpensive
devices are being targeted by counterfeiters.
PROTECTIONS
The few protections against the risks of counterfeit
electronics can arguably be classified into
two categories: " soft " and " hard. "
Many of the existing protections for consumers
can be considered " soft " mitigations
such as using the guides and information made
September/October 2021
technical validation and verification that the
product a consumer ordered is truly what was
received. While promising work is being done in
this area, such as the PC Client Firmware Integrity
Measurement16 and PC Client Resource
Integrity Manifest17 from the Trusted Computing
Group, there are no simple or straightforward
solutions for consumers today.
CONCLUSION
In the beginning of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic,
governments around the world issued
orders to prevent gatherings in confined spaces.
Students and faculty from universities and
employees and staff from corporations were
forced to remain in their homes and communicate
and interact with the rest of the world electronically.
Consumers rushed to purchase
anything and everything they could find (e.g.,
headsets, keyboards and mice, webcams, displays,
tablets, etc.)18 so that they could continue
their work or education. Before the pandemic,
there was widespread distribution and purchase
of counterfeit electronics. In a time of crisis,
where everyone's primary concern was going to
school, going to work, or seeing their physician,
did they stop and take steps to prevent purchasing
counterfeit electronics? Millions of people
around the world could potentially have several
counterfeit electronic products in each of their
homes. Do they know what is truly inside the
camera or headset they purchased? Have they
looked for visual indicators of authenticity?
Have they used x-ray imagery to determine if the
ICs inside are genuine? Adding to the unknown,
consider that reports of counterfeit products
before the pandemic were done so by those who
have identified them as such; in other words, we
only have reports of such from those who have
taken the time to report it. In these unprecedented
times and demand for hardware, the
number of unreported cases of counterfeit products
may likely have increased exponentially.
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IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - September/October 2021

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