Antiterrorism Awareness Month: What is OPSEC?

Courtesy Photo | Awareness about operations security, or OPSEC, for Department of Defense employees, military members, and others is critical to mission success. During August and Antiterrorism Awareness Month, DOD personnel are reminded to remember OPSEC. (U.S. Army Graphic Illustration)  

FORT MCCOY, WI, UNITED STATES

08.14.2020

Courtesy Story

Fort McCoy Public Affairs Office           

Operations Security (OPSEC) is a process that Soldiers, family members, and civilians use to protect critical information.

Soldiers use OPSEC to deny information to U.S. adversaries that would endanger the mission.

Family members can use OPSEC at home and at work to prevent personal information from getting to people who want to steal from them or harm them.

Did you know?
On travel to Iraq, a U.S. government official created a security risk for himself and others by tweeting his location and activities every few hours.
Families have had their homes burglarized while they were on vacation because they kept friends up to date via online profiles.

Information on social networking sites has led to people losing job offers, getting fired, and even being arrested.

Social networking sites have become a haven for identity thieves and con artists to use your personal information against you.

The Al Qaeda Handbook tells terrorists to search online for data about “government personnel and all matters related to them (residence, workplace, times of departure and arrival, number of children, and places visited).”

Some critical family information to protect includes:

• personal and medical information.

• home address and phone numbers.

• financial information (account numbers).

• Social Security numbers.

• family member information (names/date of birth).

• family routines and vacations.

• driver’s license or identification card numbers.

• medical records.

• passwords.

Follow these steps to help keep your family safe:

• Establish security protocols on personal blogs or webpages, such as encryption and password protection.

• Think of public Internet outlets as the front page of a local newspaper. You may be publishing information useful to criminals and terrorists.

• Check every privacy setting on social media platforms and set visibility to “friends only” when possible.

• Ask yourself, “What could the wrong person do with this information?

• Limit any detail about upcoming deployments, temporary duty assignments, or work performed.

• Avoid providing identifying information that would allow someone to target you or your family, such as an address, the school a child attends, or pictures of children. These could provide clues that would enable predators to locate you and your family.

• Before posting a photo or video, make sure it does not give away sensitive information.

• Use an email address that does not contain personal information.

• Ensure younger members of the family understand what they can and cannot post online.

Everyone in the Fort McCoy community can help keep the installation safe by reporting suspicious activities on Fort McCoy to the Police Department, or to the local police force if off post.

All emergency situations should be reported to the nearest local 911 emergency number.

Military personnel residing in military family housing on South Post should report suspicious activities to the Fort McCoy Police.

For more information about Antiterrorism Awareness Month, antiterrorism-awareness training on post, reporting suspicious activity, U.S. Army iWATCH, or other antiterrorism-related issues, call the Fort McCoy Antiterrorism Office.

(Article prepared by the Fort McCoy Antiterrorism Office.)

• Date Taken: 08.14.2020
• Date Posted: 08.14.2020 14:17
• Story ID: 376022
• Location: FORT MCCOY, WI, US