Opsec

What is OPSEC and Why Do We train It What is OPSEC? Its a process of protecting little pieces of culture that power grouped to maintainher to expire the bigger belief. It is also protecting minute instruction deemed host com charge essential for military commanders. It is simply denying your adversary the instruction that they might need to harm you or the mission. The AR that c overs OPSEC is AR 530-1 and goes over subprograms, responsibilities, policy, procedures, training requirements, OPSEC review, judgment, survey, contract and subcontract requirements and special access programs.The reasons why we arouse OPSEC is because any vital in figure outation that the enemy mass get their detention on send word give them an advantage on the battle vault of heaven or operations. Those little pieces of education could show the enemy the full picture of what it is that we plan to execute. Most breakt chicane what is considered vital entropy. speculate rough it, what wo uld you like to agnise near your enemy and how to perforate, interfere or stop their objective. How about where you argon going, when you ar going, how be you moving, what equipment that you exclude up stakes be using and even what paths afford you taken before.Even your units line of business association pot be a sectionalization of the training they substructure gather on. Certain identifying marks such(prenominal) as your unit patch, or any opposite unit/ battalion identifiers tin even give information. For guinea pig the enemy is imagineing at the patch and can look up through Google and dominate out what unit you argon with and take open eyes and ears to search if they can get any information on what your purpose is and where you eachow for be. Even pickings pictures in accredited places can give the enemy a layout of an argona.Its not reinvigorated to take pictures of equipment, it would not be hard with the information highway to find out all they n eed to know about certain functions of our equipment and their faltering drifter as wellhead. In this day in age we down the social media network that can also help the enemy itinerary and get information. How OPSEC r separatelys family and social networking We all sop up friends and family that want to know what you atomic number 18 doing but there are only so many things that you can tell them without violating OPSEC.You are not the only one who needs to transform why there is OPSEC, your family needs to understand its importance as well. some(prenominal) information you give them and they put out there can affect you and them. The military offers family members who are curious about OPSEC classes and outlines at the FRG meetings. They go over what it stands for and why its so important in the military. thither are also links on the internet that explain and answers a lot of questions they whitethorn impart. at that place is also a Facebook page that family members ca n go on, its called Army Operation Security. Your family has to understand that there is only so much you can tell them and even what you do tell them they dont need to be telling separates or posting it on Facebook. Without thinking they could accidently put the information out without knowing if the person they told is the enemy or a spy. You know what they say moderate your friends close and keep your enemies closer.The enemy thinks the same way and allow do whatever it takes to get the information they need to plan and infiltrate our operations. Families are the biggest target for our enemies to infiltrate and get information. One much important thing to think about is the enemy could be anyone, American or even your family you never know. at that place are many reasons why we have OPSEC but not taking the proper measures can result in serious injury or death to force, damage to weapons systems, equipment and facilities, loss of sensitive technologies and mission failure.T he process of OPSEC There is a process to OPSEC as well the subjects that are covered are identification of circumstantial information, psychoanalysis of threats, analysis of vulnerabilities, assessment of venture of infection, an application of eliminate OPSEC measures and assessment of insider knowledge. Identification of critical information is the process of identifying what information is compulsory by the enemy, not so much protecting e trulything that is classified or sensitive unclassified, but protecting what is more vital and would be more useful to the enemy.Analysis of threats is the research and analysis of intelligence, forestallintelligence and open source information on the likely enemies of a planned operation. Analysis of vulnerabilities is to examine each and every aspect of the planned operation and try to identify certain OPSEC forefingers that could break critical information and then compare those indicators with the enemy intelligence appealingness capabilities used in the previous actions that they have taken in the one- eon(prenominal).Assessment of risk is where they first go the vulnerabilities identified in the previous action and see what OPSEC measures can be taken to stop the opportunity of the enemy getting information, and then those measures are selected for execution based upon a risk assessment done by the commander and staff. Application of appropriate OPSEC measures is when the command implements the OPSEC measures selected in the assessment of risk, action, or in the case of planned prox operations and activities, which admits the measures in particular proposition OPSEC plans.Assessment of Insider Knowledge is assessing and ensuring employees, contractors, and key personnel having access to critical or sensitive information practice and maintain proper OPSEC measures by organizational security elements whether by Open Assessment or implicit Assessment in order to label the information being urbane and / or handled on all levels of operation ability (the employees/mid-level/senior management) and prevent unintended/intentional disclosure. These are all important rates that are taken to implement those measures to use as soldiers.All this information that they gather and analyze gives us the understanding of what the enemy is looking, what they have done in the past and what they whitethorn plan in the future. We have briefs annually that go over such information that they gather and the measure to prevent them from contingency again. We even sign a nondisclosure agreement aft(prenominal) we are briefed on what we are not supposed to do when we have information that is mission critical. Basically they go over the does and donts in this brief and we are bound in contract not to disclose any of this information to whom it doesnt concern.Later in this essay, you give know the consequences to violating the nondisclosure agreement. Indicators and Vulnerabilities There are other fo rms of analyzing ways that the enemy would get information and create weak spots in our operations or mission tasks, they are Indicators and Vulnerabilities. Indicators, consists of five characteristics which are signatures, associations, profiles, contrasts and pictorial matters. A signature can cause certain indicators to be identifi adequate to(p) and stand out.If a signature is unique and stable, it reduces the unclear and uncertainty of a accompaniment indicator and reduces the number of additional indicators that must be detect in order to determine the significance. If the indicators signature is stable, message that the behavior is constant and repeated, an adversary may accurately predict future actions. By varying the pattern of behavior, the signatures stability can be interrupted and increase the uncertain information of an enemies observations. An association is the family that an indicator has to other information or activities.Adversarial Intelligence Analysts sp end a considerable amount of time comparing current observations with past observations, which may reveal possible relationships. For example, an observer may note a particular employee draw to work after hours. Though previous observation, the Analyst is conscious(predicate) of that employees position as an on-call ready reckoner forensics psycho analyst. Given the association amongst those two observations, the Adversarial Intelligence Analyst could conclude that the organization has suffered a computer breach of some sort.An association can also take the form of a pattern. For instance, if it is ascertained that we do a test ack-ack on our weapons before rolling out the gate to go on mission, an analyst may be able to accurately predict these procedures. Lastly, an association can take the form of organizational patterns, particularly in military units. The analyst may be aware that a particular unit is comprised of home base Company, a maintenance company and a transportat ion company.If one of these elements is detected, the front man of the others would be strongly suspected. A profile is the sum of multiple signatures, and what that re creation is when multiple signatures are detected, the combination therein would be more or little unique to a particular mission or task. For instance, if signatures are detected that indicate that aircraft fueling capacities are in place, as well as air traffic control, personnel and weaponry, a profile can be compiled indicating future air-based operations.If a unique profile is observed, an analyst may be able to accurately determine which type of operation is in progress, minimizing the need for additional observation and analysis. Contrasts are any differences between the realised pattern and current observations. Contrasts are the most reliable indicators because they depend on differences in established and repeated profiles, and need only to be observed rather than understood. A contrast can take many fo rms for instance leaving work at a different time or the presence of vehicles or aircraft that were not antecedently observed.When noting a difference, the analyst will attempt to determine if the change is isolated or widespread, if the change has occurred previously (and has a matching association), if anything significant has occurred since the change and what the change may represent. The exposure of an indicator refers to the length of time and the time frame in which the indicator is observed. If an indicator is allowed to be observed for a long period of time, it will be assimilated into the profile and be assigned a meaning. If an indicator is able to be observed for only a short(p) period of time and does not repeat, it is less likely to attract attention.However, if the indicator is observed for short periods of time, but is repeated frequently, it will begin to be seen as a contrast to a normal profile. These can be found on OPSEC professionals. com. Vulnerabilities, is the information and indicators that can weak spots to infiltrate and disrupt the mission plans or operation. Finding and preventing the vulnerabilities can reduce the affect that it may have on missions and operations that are planned and executed. For instance, your path that you take to a given destinations, and the terrain were they could plant IEDs.If someone was to give out information as to where the mission was going and when, it could give the enemy the time to organize a plan of attack on that convoy or mission of operation. escort and Equipment security Convoy security is a very important part of our job and there are techniques that we have in the way we pull security and make ourselves less known to the enemy as well. For example, when we have to halt the convoy for complications that arise, we will turn off our lights to make ourselves less know. We also, put spaces between us to eliminate more damage in the event that we are hit with either small arms fire or an IED.I dentifying marks on the vehicle is not permitted because it can be traced and monitored by the enemy and observe and predict the way we move and how we operate. These techniques that we have shouldnt be spoken to anyone as well. If the enemy was to know this information it would give us an even more disadvantage in terminate our mission. Even the classes that we take like (Crow, Puma, Crew, etc. ) should not be divided up information, the enemy would love nothing more that to understand our equipment and the way it works.They will try to find the weakness in anything that we use to plan, secure, and complete our missions and tasks. radio set frequencies are some other very important part of information that could be very valuable to the enemy. With that information they could pretty much get skillful about anything that they would possible need to know to infiltrate us, harm us, equipment and the very mission itself. All this information and more is vital to our very purpose her e and simply if the person to whom at anytime you are speaking with or if there are others around and they do not need to know dont say anything.One other thing that is important to mark there are a lot of DOD contractors around that know and understand about OPSEC, and they are listening around you and will shroud this information that they hear. Even our battle drills we go over on how we serve and operate under certain conditions can be considered valuable information to the enemy, and something they could use against us. How to Conduct an Operations Security (OPSEC) Assessment OPSEC Assessments are conducted to evaluate an adversarys or competitors ability to access your critical information, intellectual property, proprietary information or personal information.OPSEC Assessments directly benefit anyone desiring to protect information or assets from disclosure. Operations Security (OPSEC) Assessments enable insight to your predictable indicators, exploitable processes and pro cedures while presenting specific measures to counter potential vulnerabilities. Assessments can be conducted by internal representatives from each department or can be performed by external experts and typically run from 1-3 weeks. pure tone 1 Identify information critically important to the organization, mission, contrive or home intellectual property, mission details, plans, R&D, capabilities, degradations, key personnel deployment data, medical records, contracts, network schematics, etc. Step 2 Identify the relevant adversaries, competitors or criminals with both intent and capability to acquire your critical information. Step 3 From the adversarys, competitors, or thiefs perspective, identify potential vulnerabilities and means to gains access to results of step 1. Interview a representative sample of individual.Step 4 Assess the risk of each vulnerability by its respective impact to mission accomplishment / performance if obtained Step 5 Generate / recommend specific me asures that counter identified vulnerabilities. Prioritize and enact relevant protection measures. Step 6 Evaluate measure effectiveness, adjust accordingly. This was reference at http//www. wikihow. com/Conduct-an-Operations-Security-%28Opsec%29-Assessment There are many tips when conducting a Operations Security (OPSEC) Assessment here are a couple. Dont try to perform all analysis on your own, obtain threat data from the experts.The hail of OPSEC money refreshing would be prohibitive to attempt to protect information that is already social to the public so focus on what you can protect than what is already publicly accessible. Even though 100% awareness of OPSEC is realistic, zero vulnerabilities are not. Your critical information list should not be secret and inconspicuously posted near PC monitors, phones, copiers, etc. You should keep your list to about ten items. Those aware of what to protect have a better accident of protecting sensitive information as opposed to those unaware of its take account is a general rule.Regular assessments ensure your best protection. OPSEC often provides low cost solutions to high tech problems. Instead of a long drawn-out report on observations, findings and proposed counter measures can be formatted in a presentation template. To mitigate vulnerabilities you should include a plan of actions and milestones (POA&M) in the brief to decision makers. Consequences to violating OPSEC There are many consequences to violating the nondisclosure statement that all soldiers, NCOs and Officers are obligated to adhere and follow. This is a direct order from your fibril of command.This statement informs you of the obligations and responsibilities concerning OPSEC procedures and consequences that will occur if violating this statement. OPSEC involves vital and important information on mission operations. This includes dates, times, cargo, number of personnel and vehicles, even the rout and destinations of missions. Violations o f OPSEC can slide by many different ways especially with current technology. Cellular phones are the easiest and most convenient method of use getting and giving information. However, another method would be the internet.People who make random posts on facebook or other forms of social media pages or write blogs about things they do in invade areas reveal types of information without realizing what they have done. Revealing this type of information, whether it was intentional or not can have severe consequences from the Military Judicial System. These consequences include UCMJ, Article 15, Military Court military, and separation from the military and loss of all VA benefits. Another and more substantial result of the violations is the loss of peoples lives because the enemy found this information from unsecured communication networks.The first range of punishment is an Article 15 of the UCMJ. A pass will pay back the maximum punishment from an Article 15. Which would be 45 day s superfluous duty, 45 days of restriction, loss of pay and reduction of rank. If the information the Soldier revealed results in the convoy getting ambushed and Soldiers die, that Soldier may have to come along before a Military Court for a Court Martial Hearing. If the Courts finds the Soldier guilty of the charges they have been accused of. This will result in a Dishonorable Separation from the Military.A Dishonorable Separation from the Military may result in future difficulties in civilian life after you are released from the Military. The main problem might be trying to chance on a civilian job. When employers see a disgraceful discharge from the military service and the reasons to which you obtained this action. They will be less likely to employ such a person who they cant trust in. Along with the dishonorable discharge, you will loss all benefits and entitlements. The Bureau of Veteran affairs will also give soldiers loans to buy a house or marking new vehicle.This wil l also be taken from, because due to the soldiers indiscretion to reveal vital information and risk the lives of their first mate comrades. References Operation Security on Wikipedia http//en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Operations_security Operation Security AR 530-1 www. fas. org/irp/doddir/ forces/ar530-1. pdf OPSEC Indicators www. opsecprofessionals. org/articles/indicators. htm How to Conduct an Operations Security (Opsec) Assessment http//www. wikihow. com/Conduct-an-Operations-Security-%28Opsec%29-Assessment