A Survey on Supply Chain Security: Application Areas, Security Threats, and Solution Architectures

The rapid improvement in the global connectivity standards has escalated the level of trade taking place among different parties. Advanced communication standards are allowing the trade of all types of commodities and services. Furthermore, the goods and services developed in a particular region are transcending boundaries to enter into foreign markets. Supply chains play an essential role in the trade of these goods. To be able to realize a connected world with no boundary restrictions in terms of goods and services, it is imperative to keep the associated supply chains transparent, secure, and trustworthy. Therefore, some fundamental changes in the current supply chain architecture are essential to achieve a secure trade environment. This article discusses the supply chain's security-critical application areas and presents a detailed survey of the security issues in the existing supply chain architecture. Various emerging technologies, such as blockchain, machine learning (ML), and physically unclonable functions (PUFs) as solutions to the vulnerabilities in the existing infrastructure of the supply chain have also been discussed. Recent studies reviewed in this work reveal a growing sentiment in the industry toward new and emerging technologies, such as Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, and ML. While many organizations have already adopted IoT applications and artificial intelligence systems in their businesses, widespread adoption of blockchain remains distant. It has also been found that over the past decade, PUF-based authentication systems have gained much ground. However, a proper reference model for their implementation in complex supply chains is still missing.