SCATMAN: A Framework for Enhancing Trustworthiness in Digital Supply Chains

Abstract

In this paper, we present a framework and an architecture that aim to enable and manage trust in supply chains. Our architecture addresses the authenticity and integrity of devices and processes within heterogeneous system landscapes. We identify and discuss the current challenges in digital supply chains and lay out security, privacy, and interoperability requirements that must be met for successful implementation. We hypothesize that the overall perception of trust in a supply chain depends on the trustworthiness of all digital systems involved, including hardware, software, and information flow. Our proposed architecture helps enhance trustworthiness based on verifiable, indisputable, and believable digital evidence for devices and processes in supply chains, including the entire hardware and software lifecycles. We actively advocate for a mixed landscape of centralized and decentralized solutions for the storage of evidence and trust information. This can include traditional centralized databases and distributed ledger technologies. We discuss the auditability and accountability of digital evidence using trust-enabling technologies, and present a preliminary proof-of-concept (PoC) implementation in a real-world application scenario.