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IBM and Seagate have announced a partnership to use blockchain to track and authenticate hard drives. To this end, the companies use the IBM platform and Seagate’s security technology.

The aim of the partnership is to create a system that tackles counterfeit drives and helps ensure disk support and security for the organizations that use them.

Both IBM and Seagate refer to the continuing risk of counterfeit components in electronic supply chains. But determining whether something is real or counterfeit is difficult, especially as companies often refuse to disclose specific data about their products.

Blockchain

Blockchain has to offer the solution, according to the companies. This technology stores all transactions in a multi-party ledger, providing a clear and reliable overview of transactions over time. It contains every product that has been sold. In the supply chain, the technique is used to increase transparency, increase visibility and improve the economy of the supply chain.

To apply the technology to the life cycle of a hard drive, the companies combine IBM’s blockchain platform with Seagate’s advanced electronic fingerprinting and tracking products. Seagate will update IBM’s platform with data based on the Seagate Secure Electronic ID (eID) when creating the disk.

The cryptographic erasure technology now produces a digital certificate, which is electronically signed by the device with Seagate’s public key infrastructure, after which it is stored in the blockchain.

“The ability to work with Seagate to combine blockchain with advanced cryptographic product identification technology is what makes this work different, and signals the potential of blockchain to change the management process of life cycle electronics,” said Bruce Anderson, global managing director at IBM.

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.