Cybersecurity experts have long warned about the potential for foreign intrusion through weak points in the nation’s supply chain.
Hardware imported from overseas — semiconductors, routers, etc. — could be used to introduce vulnerabilities or surveillance capabilities into the devices and networking systems we use every day as consumers and at work.
Now, at a time when the administration is in the midst of an escalating trade war with China, federal authorities have taken steps to ban two prominent Chinese from accessing U.S. markets.
On Wednesday, President Trump declared a national emergency to respond to “the threat posed by the unrestricted acquisition or use in the United States of information and communications technology or services” from hostile foreign actors. The order directs the Commerce Department, in consultation with other relevant departments and agencies, to review and reject any transaction from a foreign power deemed to pose an undue threat to U.S. security.
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