Global supply chain management degree

Malware in computers has been a reality since the 1990s, but lately the focus has shifted to hardware. So far, the semiconductor industry has been lucky because well-publicized threats were either limited or unproven. But sooner or later, luck runs out. Last year saw two significant incidents that shook people’s faith in the integrity of hardware security. The first was the Meltdown/Spectre flaws found in x86 and Arm processors, to varying degrees. Intel was hit the hardest because of its heavy use of speculative execution, Arm not so much, and different Arm SoCs had varying levels of exposure. Software fixes were issued, at the cost of performance. And with its recently-introduced Xeon Scalable processors, Intel has fixed the problem in silicon. The second was an October story by Bloomberg that motherboards sold by U.S. ODM Super Micro had tiny chips embedded in them to steal information. The motherboards were manufactured in Taiwan and China and allegedly used to steal … [Read more...] about Can The Hardware Supply Chain Remain Secure?

Chief information security officers (CISOs) today have replaced chief information officers (CIOs) as the most under-valued C-level executives. In fact, according to research from the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) and the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA), nearly one-third (29 percent) of corporations today still do not have a CISO role or its equivalent. And for those that do have such a role, the CISO is often relegated to “glorified administrator” status, rather than strategic business enabler. This is why CISOs are almost always fired or “resign” after major data breaches. When shareholders and customers demand blood following a breach, the CISO is the sacrificial lamb, even if there is no realistic way the CISO could have prevented the breach under the operating circumstances (which could include insufficient budget, headcount, and business visibility). This is often a self-defeating act, since the CISO is usually the most qualified person to … [Read more...] about CISOs: You need to manage by ‘walking around’