8 Ways Hackers Can Game Air Gap Protections

The almighty air gap has long been critical systems' go-to last resort - the idea being if you pull the plug of connectivity on these systems and don't allow them any kind of access to the outside world, you'll eliminate the bad guys' ability to remotely carry out their attacks.

While it's true that air gaps can drastically shrink attack surface, they're far from infallible. Security researchers - particularly a few from Ben-Gurion University in Israel - have worked over the last five to 10 years to show that even the most meticulously isolated air gap can be overcome with some clever uses of side channels. Here are some of the most effective end-arounds of air gap defense.