Hacker explained the advantage of ancient computers on nuclear facilities

Last week, the media flew around the " news " that the US Department of Defense is still using IBM Series / 1 computers from the 1970s and 8-inch floppy disks to control the nuclear arsenal. Many laughed at this, but not the information security specialists.

"The biggest security problem is not at all that the computer is 40 years old, but the quality of isolation of this computer from the outside world," says Cris Thomas, a strategic security specialist at Tenable Network Security, known in the underground circles as Space Rogue as one of the founders of the hacker group L0pht. This group was promoted in 1998 when it declared in the US Senate that it could put the Internet in 30 minutes.

Hacker explained that computers of 70s with floppy disks are very difficult to crack. In fact, the US Department of Defense specifically resisted upgrading to new computer equipment. Safety cited as one of the arguments against the upgrade.
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IBM Series / 1 computers for managing a nuclear arsenal are probably isolated from external networks. To gain access to the system, it is necessary to gain physical access to the machine. But even in this case, the hacker will be difficult, because he will have to use ancient equipment, to understand the programs on COBOL and FORTRAN. Archaic hardware and software is in some sense an additional level of protection .

According to Thomas, the reliability of the IBM Series / 1 mainframe is well known, so he is not surprised that they are still used.

“If they can make regular copies of software on 8-inch floppy disks, while they are not degraded, and they have a supply of components and new floppy disks, there is no reason why the system will not work for another 40 years,” he said.

According to the plans of the US Department of Defense, by the end of 2017 fiscal year, “the installation of new data storage systems, port expansion cards, portable terminals and fixed terminals” is envisaged.