Counterfeiters are taking advantage of the ongoing supply crisis in the electronics sector by increasingly offering desperate buyers counterfeit semiconductors. This is the conclusion of a recent report by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and the European Union Law Enforcement Agency (Europol). According to the publication, global supply chains are particularly susceptible to the introduction of counterfeits because chips typically pass through multiple stations before reaching the production sites, which makes it difficult to trace the original supplier of the counterfeit semiconductors.

This is a worrying development, as Europol emphasizes. The use of counterfeit semiconductors can lead to serious failures, as chips and microchips are an integral part of critical systems such as healthcare, defense, and transportation. This makes it all the more important to reliably protect products against counterfeiting, to make it easier to verify authenticity, and monitor supply chains seamlessly.

Image: Tima Miroshnichenko (Pexels)