Potomac Institute experts Michael Fritze, PhD and Kathryn Schiller Wurster published an article with Defense One  entitled, "Time to Get Serious about Hardware Cybersecurity" about the need for a national strategy to deal with hardware security threats like the ones posed by the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities. The article states:

"The Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities should be the kick in the pants that moves the US government past wishful thinking. The fix will probably require some sort of hardware replacement in each of the millions of devices and systems that use these ubiquitous chips: laptops, smartphones, cloud servers, critical infrastructure control systems, weapons from missiles to fighter jets, other defense-related systems, and more."

We need a national strategy for acquiring secure hardware for our military and critical infrastructure needs. Such a strategy would include such policy steps as:

1. Create a comprehensive hardware cyber initiative.
2. Obtain secure and assured access to critical chips.
3. Prioritize hardware security research.

Read the full article at Defense One.

Dr. Fritze and Ms. Schiller Wurster both support multiple government customers on policy solutions to hardware security and defense microelectronics issues. Michael Fritze, PhD, is a Vice President at the Potomac Institute and the Director of the VITAL Center and Kathryn Schiller Wurster is the Chief Policy Officer at the Institute.