5 ms·
I reckon air-gapped networks are a valid defense. If something needn't be connected, why let it? It mitigates so many threats.
by ignoramous 6y ago
I reckon air-gapped networks are a valid defense. If something needn't be connected, why let it? It mitigates so many threats.
- arcticbull 6y agoCan an individual not accidentally or intentionally infect a computer not connected to the internet?
- fennecfoxen 6y agoIt's called Stuxnet, and it ruined 20% of Iran's uranium centrifuges. Which were air-gapped.
- zaroth 6y agoAir gaps didn’t save Iran. Air gaps are just one layer in the onion.
- bobmaxup 6y agoIs the argument that Iran was attacked on air-gapped network, so its not worth doing?
- tedunangst 6y agoDo the opposite of last time logic is surprisingly popular, despite leading to some odd conclusions.
- natch 6y agoTradeoffs. Air gaps come with other costs of their own.
- fennecfoxen 6y agoPipelines run for thousands of miles and operate 24/7. What do you imagine? Keeping a fleet of helicopters on standby to pick up a technician at home, and drop him wherever the equipment is, in case something needs to be adjusted at night?
- dabbledash 6y agoAre pipelines something we invented after the internet? Have we lost the knowledge we used to support infrastructure before the 90s?
- fennecfoxen 6y agoBefore the 90s? Hmm. Well, if you believe Thomas C. Reed's account, the US was using trojans to sabotage Soviet oil pipelines in 1982.
- SkyMarshal 6y agoIs that the one when the CIA got wind of a Soviet industrial espionage operation, and seeded it with a legit-looking but subtly flawed schematic, which the Soviets ended up actually building to spec, and it exploded shortly after? That wasn't an internet trojan, fyi.
- fennecfoxen 6y agoAccording to the story, this was some Canadian pipeline control equipment or software which the USSR purchased from some Canadians, but the CIA modified the software somehow before it was delivered. A supply-chain attack on a computer system. I understand there's nonzero doubt as to the credibility of this story.
- ctoth 6y agoI'm currently reading The Dead Hand, and I think this matches what you're talking about: > Rather than roll up the Line X officers and expel them, Reagan approved a secret plan to exploit the Farewell dossier for economic warfare against the Soviet Union. The plan was to secretly feed the Line X officers with technology rigged to self-destruct after a certain interval. The idea came from Weiss, who approached Casey, who took it to Reagan. The CIA worked with American industry to alter products to be slipped to the KGB, matching the KGB’s shopping list. “Contrived computer chips found their way into Soviet military equipment, flawed turbines were installed on a gas pipeline, and defective plans disturbed the output of chemical plants and a tractor factory,” Weiss said. “The Pentagon introduced misleading information pertinent to stealth aircraft, space defense, and tactical aircraft.” > Oil and gas equipment was at the top of the Soviet wish list, and the Soviets needed sophisticated control systems to automate the valves, compressors and storage facilities for a huge new pipeline to Europe. When the pipeline technology could not be purchased in the United States, the KGB shopped it from a Canadian firm. However, tipped by Vetrov, the CIA rigged the software sold from Canada to go haywire after a while, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to create pressures far beyond those acceptable to the pipeline joints and welds. One day, the system exploded. “The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space,” Reed recalled. The blast was starting to trigger worried looks in the U.S. government that day, he recalled, when, at the National Security Council, “Gus Weiss came down the hall to tell his fellow NSC staffers not to worry.” The explosion had been one of the first fruits of the Reagan confrontation.
- teclordphrack2 6y agoIran would like a word!
- 6nf 6y agoAllowing remote monitoring and troubleshooting is too convenient