{"id":26312,"date":"2019-12-12T16:30:18","date_gmt":"2019-12-12T16:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2019\/12\/12\/how-hackers-breached-an-air-force-system\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T18:21:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T18:21:12","slug":"how-hackers-breached-an-air-force-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/home\/2019\/12\/12\/how-hackers-breached-an-air-force-system\/","title":{"rendered":"How hackers breached an Air Force system"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At DEFCON 2019, held in Las Vegas in August, the Air Force allowed ethical hackers to try to intrude into actual operational equipment \u2014 a data transfer system for the F-15 tactical fighter aircraft. It was not surprising that the hackers succeeded. What surprised the Air Force\u2019s top weapons buyer was exactly how they got in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat they told me was the ways we got in were not the things you\u2019ve told industry to design. They were the things industry doesn\u2019t know is in their supply chain \u2014 it\u2019s the ports that weren\u2019t cut off, the dry functions that weren\u2019t cut off,\u201d Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, said Dec. 11 at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are the thing you need to tell industry don\u2019t do \u2026 Our defense companies are assemblers from the supply chains that they don\u2019t require the suppliers to tell them what code, what software functionality is running on components because we don\u2019t tell industry to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t