Reversing Reverse Engineering
While the continued obsolescence of military aircraft parts and systems is an ever growing problem, companies like PHT with deep expertise in reverse engineering have been thus far able to successfully re-engineer all kinds of electrical and mechanical systems, from radar equipment, to aircraft navigation lights, to power supplies, actuators and more.
But when reverse engineering goes on in Russia or China, on US military systems, it?s a problem. On the commercial side, China has a long history of reverse engineering intellectual property of all kinds and then closing their markets to all but Chinese companies. But when this tendency is applied to military systems the stakes are even higher, threatening to erode the US edge in national security.
The US Military Reacts to Foreign Reverse Engineering
The US Air Force has long been aware of this problem and recently U.S. Air Force researchers are asking the industry for new anti-tamper technologies to help safeguard U.S. military weapon systems from exploitation, reverse engineering, technology theft, and countermeasures. Officials of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, have issued a broad agency announcement for an Anti-Tamper program.
Military leaders need anti-tamper technology to prevent U.S. military secrets from falling into enemy hands from the capture or loss of sensitive military electronics that contain sensitive information or advanced component technologies. The 5-year program seeks to mature anti-tamper technologies in a number of areas including
- Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) architectures;
- Anti-tamper sensor technology;
- Anti-tamper enabling technology.
To properly secure COTS systems, manufacturers will need to first secure the COTS parts that they typically consist of. This tamper proof technology will be compatible with defense industry open architecture designs to enable upgrades of unsecure systems to more secure versions. Secure COTS processor solutions involve technologies that would enable FPGA software to protect critical program information at rest and during runtime from known exploitation techniques.
Anti-tamper sensor technology would offer anti-tamper protections to new or legacy military systems, including enclosures, packaging, and sensors that can protect critical program information at the system, board, or component level.
For more information on Reverse Engineering of Military Hardware, Contact the team at PHT Aerospace Today.