The Silicon Trojan

This story was originally published on HackerNoon at: https://hackernoon.com/the-silicon-trojan. A supply chain manager discovers a shipment of defense-grade chips that perform too well. A sci-fi story about hardware trojans, lithography, and corp sabotage. Check more stories related to writing at: https://hackernoon.com/c/writing. You can also check exclusive content about #hackernoon-scifi, #silicon-trojan, #microchip-security, #hardware-supply-chain, #speculative-technology, #hardware-root-of-trust, #embedded-hardware-security, #secure-hardware-design, and more. This story was written by: @legit. Learn more about this writer by checking @legit's about page, and for more stories, please visit hackernoon.com. When a shipment of 10,000 microcontrollers arrived for our drone guidance project, I pulled one for a routine stress test. The results were impossible: the chip ran 20% faster than the spec sheet allowed. I realized too late that these weren't counterfeits—they were advanced hardware trojans designed to take control, and my boss had already signed the manifest.