#AIR GAPPED SOFTWARE#

The spy agency has reportedly been using a more sophisticated version of this technique for years to siphon data from air-gapped machines in Iran and elsewhere. The method is more than just a concept, however, to the NSA. The proof-of-concept hack involves radio signals generated and transmitted by an infected machine's video card, which are used to send passwords and other data over the air to the FM radio receiver in a mobile phone. Researchers in Israel showed how they could siphon data from an air-gapped machine using radio frequency signals and a nearby mobile phone. More recently, evidence has shown that air-gapped systems can also be attacked through radio waves. Outside contractors responsible for programming the systems in Iran were infected first and then became unwitting carriers for the malware when they brought their laptops into the plant and transferred data to the air-gapped systems with a flash drive. Computer systems controlling the centrifuges were air-gapped, so the attackers designed Stuxnet to spread surreptitiously via USB flash drives. One of the most famous cases involving the infection of an air-gapped system is Stuxnet, the virus/worm designed to sabotage centrifuges used at a uranium enrichment plant in Iran.

Such firewalls, however, can be breached if the code has security holes or if the firewalls are configured insecurely.Īlthough air-gapped systems were believed to be more secure in the past, since they required an attacker to have physical access to breach them, recent attacks involving malware that spread via infected USB flash drives have shown the lie to this belief.

#AIR GAPPED SOFTWARE#

But many companies insist that a network or system is sufficiently air-gapped even if it is only separated from other computers or networks by a software firewall. A true air gap means the machine or network is physically isolated from the internet, and data can only pass to it via a USB flash drive, other removable media, or a firewire connecting two computers directly.

Air gapped