A telescope looking through a proper window at nighttime could be enough. Some LEDs are powerful enough to illuminate a large chunk of an otherwise dark room.

The point is that the air-gapped system would have to be compromised first.

And not in a windowless room already.

How many air gapped systems are running next to a Window?

Although I guess you can use this as evidence: if it needs to be air-gapped it also needs to be in a windowless room or some kind of sealed container.

How long before we have people shooting cosmic rays at air-gapped systems in windowless rooms and measuring bit flips?

Most of the time the system is compromised before being in an air gapped setup, for instance in the supply chain.

I think it's common to have multiple systems on different airgapped networks in the same room. So if one of the networks were compromised this could let you pivot to another network. Or if they're both compromised it would give a way to exfil from one to the other.

This is what I am wondering. This attack has been known for quite awhile.

That being said it might be enough just to compromise ANY system within the air gapped network - and then escalate from there. Data could still be routed through the computer with line of site (although now we are talking about an increasingly sophisticated automated hack)

Right. In the SCIFs I have been in, if there even are windows, the blinds remain drawn at all times.

> In the SCIFs I have been in, if there even are windows, the blinds remain drawn at all times.

Windows are discouraged in SCIF construction, though not outright against spec. Aside from visual controls like blinds/curtains, IR/RF controls like RF film over the glass panes are also mandatory.

You could potentially use a UAV for a sophisticated cyber attack on a specific system.