US NAVY: Hackers 'Jumping The Air Gap' Would 'Disrupt The World Balance Of Power'

[jakeXT]

The next generation hackers may be taking to sound waves, and the Navy is understandably spooked.
Citing the cutting-edge new destroyer U.S.S. Zumwalt, retired Capt. Mark Hagerott, deputy director of cybersecurity for the U.S. Naval Academy, said that the ship is heavily protected against common hacking techniques.

“If you take a cybernetic view of what’s happening [in the Navy], right now our approach is unplug it or don’t use a thumb drive,” said Hagerott.

But if hackers “are able to jump the air gap, we are talking about fleets coming to a stop,” Hagerott said at the Defence One Summit last week.

An air gap, in cyber security terms, simply means that a network is not connected to the public Internet, wired or wifi. For a long time the thought was that an air gap rendered networks pretty much impenetrable.

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/navy-acoustic-hackers-could-halt-fleets-2013-11

[unhappycamper]

1. For five plus billion dollars, the USS Zumwalt should be able to defend against the Apocalypse.

One ship, 50 million hungrier Americans.

[Orrex]

2. "Mr. President! We cannot allow a cyber air gap!"

[bemildred]

3. You know they were told twenty years ago that putting computers in all this stuff was a mistake.

And this is pretty much why too, because of bugs and hacking. And networking it all, don't get me started.

[ancianita]

4. Yep. SIPRNet & NIPRNet have been realities for decades. WHO hacks them will be the interesting part