It is a common practice by governmental institutions, utilities and business units to create an air-gap network in order to bank their private data from being compromised.
This form of activity is mainly performed by storing important files in such computer which have no access to internet and total encrypted from internet connection. This is the most ultimate process of segregation which is created to keep the sensitive information save from pouring out.
Air-gap network approach has lost its reliability in terms of encrypting data as the hackers from Israel has discovered a way of breaking the security walls to compromise data from the computers protected with air-gap network. All is required to pass a particular form of virus that infects the computer, and then the hackers can easily initiate the process of information transmission via wireless network from the mobile phone device operated anywhere outside the room.
The purpose of the anti-security program is not to steal undisruptive information such as Facebook password, but it designed to have an access of very sensitive information that might be used by cyber activist or state-funded hackers to convert impossible into possible.
According to Dudu Mimran, chief technology officer at Ben-Gurion's cyber security labs, “The simple way to understand the whole process is that, you visit to any protected facility and place your mobile phone outside the room. This virus enables you to attain all the information in your cell phone placing at the entrance.”
Military security information, critical medical equipment and other important infrastructure systems are taken away from the internet access. The researchers from Ben-Gurion University had critically evaluated the security layer of air-gap networks and developed particular virus software that can break the security network very easily. The researchers have raised the concerns regarding the efficacy of air-gap net in front of cyber security authorities.
The researchers are now working on ways to mitigate the effects of such a breach. The team of researchers says they have yet to find a way to protect against the cyber attack other than to store equipment in special metal enclosures or to build walls thick enough to scramble radio frequencies and block the transmission.
Now, the researchers are investigating the technique to avoid or alleviate the level of violation. However, with the deployment of paper-thin walls, the data would be highly protected and won’t be too simple to haul out. Before draining off the data, the one is required to plant the virus into the computer device. This can only be possible via a person having direct access to hardware who can hook up the USB device containing Malwares. The whole process starts after this act when virus will reprogram the graphic card into signal transmitter with the help of display wire, which will then catch by a mobile device places nearby. The signals are transmitted through FM radio frequency, which the latest mobile phones having the features to pick them up.
