Comment by jmyeet

Well this is a tradeoff. In theory a specialized device is more robust and has a smaller attack surface. Consider something running Linux with some libc and a whole host of other shared libs. Sure they have some robustness because they're so widely used but that's a massive attack surface. There is a solid argument for dedicated hardware.

Also, general purpose hardware doesn't really prevent this as much as you might like. You're still subject to supply chain attacks even if Linux (etc) are quite secure. Look at supply chain attacks we've had in the npm and other ecosystems.