AirForce eliminated the floppy disk used in its Strategic Automated Command and Control System

the US Air Force recently eliminated the floppy disk used in its Strategic Automated Command and Control System (SACCS) and switched to a more secure solid-state digital storage device.

It is understood that SACCS is a communication system used by the United States to transfer information between various nuclear platforms. The system was created in 1968 and has been running on the IBM Series/1’s floppy drive mainframe for nearly 50 years. During this time, the system has been using an 8-inch floppy disk as its storage medium. The US military officer responsible for equipment updates said that the upgrade was limited to replacing storage devices and would not update other parts of the SACCS system. The person in charge said that such an old system can better defend against cyber-attacks because hackers cannot invade the system through conventional Internet protocols.

“us air force”by alandberning is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

However, the US nuclear system is not as safe as the person in charge described. Last year, the US Department of Defense inspector found that the network system of the US Missile Defense Agency can be said to be full of loopholes. The organization has never used encryption to protect its sensitive data, has not used multi-factor authentication systems, has not installed anti-virus software, and has never patched software vulnerabilities.

Via: arstechnica