Serious concerns have emerged in the past several years about the integrity and trustworthiness of IT products and the ability of an adversary to compromise or insert vulnerabilities into IT products through infiltration of the supply chain. In particular, federal and critical IT customers have expressed concerns about adversaries intercepting products while in transit and reselling or hacking them.
We take this matter very seriously at Juniper. In 2001, years before supply chain integrity became a serious concern, Juniper established its Brand Integrity Management System, designed to protect our products and intellectual property at all stages of their lifecycle.
Specific to the supply chain, Juniper has dissected each supply chain process for security risks and has implemented industry leading best practices to ensure that our products are secure and function as intended with the highest quality. It starts with how we select, validate and collaborate with our partners and suppliers; this ensures the authenticity and quality of the components used, while providing a highly secure environment for the manufacture and distribution of our products to our customers.
Our efforts to secure the supply chain have not gone unnoticed. In 2012, Juniper was awarded Tier 3 status in the U.S. Customs–Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), which looks to secure the import supply chain to the U.S. from the introduction of contraband and weapons of mass destruction. We have also achieved certification in the European Union as an Authorised Economic Operator – Security by European Customs.
In our history, there have never been reports or evidence of counterfeiting of Juniper Networks products. This is a testament to how we design, build and provide the best, most secure networking products in the industry.
To learn more about how Juniper, along with our industry and government partners work to identify emerging supply chain risks and identify best practices to mitigate those risks, please contact me below. I will respond.