German equipment makers fight back against fakers

Machine tool manufacturers are becoming an increasingly popular target for pirating operations, with around a third of all companies seeing their business eroded by cheap imitations of their products, according to researchers in Germany.

Scientists are now turning the tables on the forgers by studying their methods and developing anti-counterfeit solutions to tackle the trade in copied textile machines, compressors and plastics processing equipment, amongst other equipment.

"Most companies have absolutely no idea just how easily their products can be copied," says Bartol Filipovic, head of the product protection department at the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Applied and Integrated Security (AISEC) near Munich.

In the world of industrial machines, there are forgeries of almost everything that can be copied, from housing design to instruction manuals. The most critical elements are those that give a product its 'intrinsic value': electronic circuits and software that constitute its distinctive characteristics. This makes embedded systems with measurement, control, or signal processing functions prime targets for forgers.

"Many companies react only once counterfeits of their own products have surfaced on the market," says AISEC. "Although it is then too late to prevent fake copies, it is possible to tag the original so that it can be distinguished from imitations."

For example, the aviation industry marks safety-critical spare parts with copy-resistant holograms; it is also possible to build a kind of indelible electronic fingerprint into the circuit. But taking any number of safety precautions is not going to be enough to deter manufacturers of fake products, and trade in them can only be stopped when customs officers, distributors and customers are all equipped with the devices needed to read and decode the markings.

"As this is often not the case, companies should see to it that suitable protection mechanisms are placed deep within the hardware when developing each new product range," says AISEC.

One option is to install cryptographic devices that encrypt the data stored within the machine. These devices generate the corresponding decryption key based on the duration of electrical signals on the microchip. The signals emitted by other chips, even those from the same production batch, will be of a slightly different duration, rendering the key unusable.

Another option is to use hardwired control units. These purpose-built chips make it extremely difficult for offenders to rip the software and run it using standard chips built into product imitations. However, it is possible for companies to safeguard computer programs without the need for special hardware; for instance by adopting obfuscation techniques.

It is definitely worthwhile for companies to analyse and develop suitable technical safeguards, says Filipovic, who claims that the group's customers enjoy "at least five to ten years relief from attacks by product counterfeiters".