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OPSEC and you

  • Published
  • By Maj. Nicholas Fine
  • 436th Airlift Wing Plans and Programs

You have probably been practicing Operations Security (OPSEC) in your personal life without even knowing it. Take, for instance, when you’re preparing to go on a trip, do you stop delivery of newspapers so they won’t pile up outside and send a signal that you aren’t home? Do you connect porch lights and indoor lights to timers so they’ll go on at preset times to make it appear that someone is home? If so, you’re practicing OPSEC! The desired effect of OPSEC is to influence the adversary’s behavior and actions by protecting friendly operations and activities. Below is the five-step process of OPSEC with examples from both work and home:

  • Identifying Critical Information and Indicators: specific facts about intentions, capabilities and activities needed by adversaries to plan and act effectively (e.g. deployment dates and location/posting specific vacation plans on social media)

  • Analyzing Threats: an adversary that has the capability and intent to perform actions detrimental to the success of operations (e.g. terrorist groups/robbers)

  • Analyze Vulnerabilities: ways that critical information and indicators are transmitted (e.g. unsecure communications/social media)

  • Assessing Risks: threat + vulnerability + impact (e.g. current threat level/crime rate in neighborhood)

  • Applying Countermeasures: denying the adversary to gather information (e.g. encrypting emails/canceling mail)

Since Air Mobility Command is the life blood of nearly every military operation around the globe, it is crucial that every member of Dover AFB, to include families, practice sound OPSEC in their daily lives.