Originally posted by Dolos
I. If I hack into your highest military database, I control your missile defense system and all operations you're running. If I hack into thousands of your networks using self-recalibrating automated subroutines, I run your whole economic infrastructure on top of the aforementioned seizure of governmental operations.
That's not how it works.
There exists and entire area of Cyber and Physical Security known as "Secure System Controls". These integrate PLCs, VPNs, firewalls, and isolated networks that literally cannot communicate to anything outside their network because it is physically impossible to connect (no Wi-Fi, physical connection points, and a physically isolated network).
The idea that anyone could "hack" into a missile network and launch some of the US ICBMs with 10+ Megaton Warheads is not only preposterous, it is fear-mongering.
To put it more directly, the missiles cannot be launched without several authentication mechanisms being hacked AND physical interaction. So unless a hacker cannot only hack all layers of security (hilariously impossible even with every single computing device in the world being used at once to brute force hack one or more of those layers: we are talking hundreds of trillions of years required for just one layer) but also be at the physical controls (which are completely isolated and require you get past isolated authentication mechanisms, physical security measures, automated security measures, and several layers of human security).
Here's a story: one of my college mentors was hired by the Navy to both hack and "socially engineer" his way into a secure naval facility. It was the type of facility that was not even "top-secret" secured. He made his way into the facility and got as far as being able to physically touch a switch closet (which required him to get passed 3 layers of physical security including "picking" a lock..let's forget about the cameras...he did not go into details how he got around that). This project of his took 2 months of planning to execute, insider knowledge of his target from top-level Naval Officers (because they hired him to do this as part of a secure audit process that routinely tests their security), and his years of experience of hacking and infiltrating secure facilities.
Here's what happened when he got to a switch closet to start some of his real hacking: he ended up with a gun in his back by a guard. Based on how he tells the story, he was pretty dang close to getting shot to death (being shot vs. being shot with the specific purpose of killing the target is obviously different). He had to have his orders on his physical person. If he reached for them, he would have been shot. There was a particular procedure he had to complete that got him out of that situation (I believe it was announcing his name, assignment, and orders).
Then the guard's CO? arrived to pick up and confirm his orders (they were called in and he was the picked up and "debriefed"😉. He was caught because he did something/ANYTHING to the switches which set off security servce. This "network state" is monitored by IDS/IPS.
This is at a lower-level military facility. The security measures at a nuke weapons facility will be much higher: possibly the most secure facilities, in the world.
I hope that clears up any notion you had that "hacking nukes" was feasible: it's just Hollywood Bullsh*t. An infinite amount of 0-Days will never get you into a network that is physically isolated from the rest of the world.
TL: DR America! F*** YEAH! estahuh
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Why is this military database connected to the internet?
Because this is Hollywood? rofl