06/19/2026
What we call an "air gap" today is not what it used to be, and that gap in understanding is a real security risk.
Here's the evolution:
In the 50s and 70s, isolation was just physics. No internet, no connectivity. Data moved by hand. Security was never the goal, it was a side effect.
By the 80s and 90s, connectivity arrived and changed everything. Both IT and OT environments started treating physical separation as an intentional security control for the first time.
Then as organizations needed to share information across agencies and domains, pure physical isolation became impractical. The industry shifted to logical separation. VLANs, hardware security modules, and cross-domain solutions designed to control data flow between environments.
The result? What many still call an air gap is now, in practice, a virtual gap. And knowing the difference matters more than ever.
Our CEO and SANS Principal Instructor, My-Ngoc, walks through the full timeline and more in her webinar Air-Gapped Security in a Connected World, watch it here: https://www.sans.org/webcasts/air-gapped-security-connected-world