How do you attack an unconnected network? (Outside of having physical access, obviously.) I wish he'd explained that, or at least linked to a page that lists those techniques. Some time ago there was a security researcher who'd made a similar claim, about a virus that could infect a computer not connected to the internet, but it was met with a lot of scepticism. Schneier is considered one of the top experts on matters of security, so I assume he knows what he's talking about. If he's right, things are even worse than I thought. So basically, all the top players probably know each other's secrets. Classified technology, classified programs, classified personal information, etc. While it's a little comforting to know that not even intelligence agencies have much privacy any more, should we be worried about that?the agency’s Tailored Access Operations group has extraordinary capabilities to hack into and “exfiltrate” data from specific computers, even if those computers are highly secured and not connected to the Internet.
the nation-state techniques we’re seeing work against classified and unconnected networks as well.
I am reminded of a comment made to me in confidence by a US intelligence official. I asked him what he was most worried about, and he replied: “I know how deep we are in our enemies’ networks without them having any idea that we’re there. I’m worried that our networks are penetrated just as deeply.”
I would assume that the method of transfer would involve a USB devices or such, combined with knowledge on how the network is set up (and thus which machines to target) and possibly some 0-day exploits so that you can avoid detection by virus scanners and so forth. And realistically, much of this has already been seen in the wild with worms like Stuxnet. So we can assume that a state-sponsored attacker would be able to execute such attacks if the target is worth the effort.
He has an airgaps tag on his site. There are a couple of things tagged as such, but not much. I grabbed the following off of this discussion on setting up an airgap: Stuxnet and agent.btz are examples of attacks that defeated air gapped networks. TEMPEST would also be something to look at if you are interested in this area. I'm sorry I don't really have an insightful answer. This is an area I'm interested in, but I can't claim to understand it. Anything beyond regurgitating links is above my skill set. How do you attack an unconnected network? (Outside of having physical access, obviously.) I wish he'd explained that, or at least linked to a page that lists those techniques.