So I have a situation where I would like to keep data secure. In my mind if I’m working on a computer that has no network connection, this is the safest.
However, I may from time to time need to transfer data to this machine, which introduces a vulnerability. Any thoughts on how I could minimize the risk in this case?
You don’t say anything about the operating system you’re using.
I like Qubes for this use case. You have one Qube that handles your USB devices and then you can move data in and out of that Qube whatever way feels safest. If we’re talking documents, spreadsheets and / or text files, cutting and pasting the text is a pretty safe option. If were talking image or video files, you could re encode them with imagemagick or ffmpeg before copying them between Qubes. PDFs are a bit of a tougher nut to crack. And software is… well… software.
But Qubes is a very troubleshoot it yourself OS.