In light of the revelation that the US military uses 8-inch floppy disks to coordinate nuclear force operations, Cris Thomas, Strategist at Tenable Network Security commented below.
Cris Thomas, Strategist at Tenable Network Security:
The IBM Series-1 that they are using is most likely completely airgaped as I don’t think they ever developed networking for that machine. The machines are notoriously reliable actually. And I am not surprised that they have had one in service for 40 years. As long as they can make regular copies of the software on the 8 inch floppy’s so that they don’t degrade, and they have a ready supply of spare parts and new floppies there’s no reason why the system wouldn’t last another forty years.
“The biggest security issues here aren’t that the computer is 40 years old it’s going to be the quality of the lock that is on the door to the room that the computer is in.”
I hope these comments are of use to you, feel free to include them in any coverage you are writing or updating on this story. Cris will be present at InfoSecurity 2016, so do let me know if you’d like to speak with him at the show on this or any related topics.
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