OPSEC: Adversary In Information Warfare

The purpose of OPSEC is to reduce the vulnerability of US forces from adversary exploitation of critical information or indicators. The process is a systematic method used to identify, control, and protect critical information and subsequently analyze friendly actions associated with military operations. This includes analyzing the enemy collection means, or sensors, which can observe friendly activities and forward on to senior leadership. Most times this information is not overt like finding top secret plans but rather “it is little indicators, puzzle pieces, that when combined with other indicators, loudly shout ‘Here I am!’ to the enemy.

OPSEC should be used to protect information, and thereby deny the adversary the ability to act.  Nearly 90% of the information collected comes from “Open Sources”. Any information that can be obtained freely, without breaking the law, is Open Source.  It is social network sites, tweets, text messages, blogs, videos, photos, GPS mapping, newsletters, magazine or newspaper articles, your college thesis, or anything else that

Per ADP 5-0, to understand something is to grasp its nature and significance. Understanding includes establishing context—the set of circumstances that surround a particular event or situation. ADRP 5-0 states that understanding is fundamental to the commander’s ability to establish a situation’s context. Information collection (to include reconnaissance and surveillance) is indispensable to building and improving the commander’s understanding. ADRP 3-0 states, the intelligence warfighting function is the related tasks and systems that facilitate understanding the enemy, terrain, weather, civil considerations, and other significant aspects of the operations environment

IO seeks to integrate and synchronize information related capabilities with maneuver to target the enemy’s decision-making cycle

What is OPSEC? It’s a process of protecting little pieces of information that might grouped together to give the bigger picture. It is also protecting critical information deemed mission essential for military commanders. It is simply denying your adversary the information that they might need to harm you or the mission. The AR that covers OPSEC is AR 530-1 and goes over purposes, responsibilities, policy, procedures, training requirements, OPSEC review, assessment, survey, contract and subcontract requirements and special access programs. The reasons why we have OPSEC is because any vital information that the enemy can get their hands on can give them an advantage on the battle field or

The Third week of this class was designed to cover objectives one, two, and three. Objectives one and two were covered in weeks one and two which allowed week three to take what we had already learned about what information warfare is and the theory of warfare and apply it in our week three assignment trough an anticlerical review of the use of

The United States is under attack. To be exact, the nation’s power grid is under attack in the form of cyber warfare. On May 21st, 2013 Congressmen Edward J. Markey and Henry A Waxman published a report that provided the findings from information that they had requested from over 150 utility companies (of which 60% responded). More than a dozen utilities reported “daily, constant, or frequent attempted cyber-attacks” (Markey & Waxman) with one utility reporting that they have about 10,000 attempted attacks per month!

Military leaders have recognized the role of information as a key contributor to victory on the battlefield. The ability of the commander to quickly receive, analyze, and pass information is a critical element to the success of military operations. In order to understand how information affects military operations it is necessary to think in terms of three distinct domains; the physical domain consisting of the natural environment in which the senses are dominant, the information domain consisting of data, information systems, and documented knowledge, and the cognitive domain which consists of situational awareness, assessment and understanding. Technological innovation introduced over time has provided the ability to transition from one

The research topic of Information Warfare is of interest to me because as a Marine we have always been taught to use our mind, think critically and to be open to change. If the Marine Corps is to remain relevant and continue to be one of the most lethal fighting forces in the world, we must be able to adapt to emerging threats and be prepared at all times. Although my focus is applying my research topic of Information Warfare to the Marine Corps, I think it is relevant and essential to all the services and every soldier, sailor and airman needs to ask the same question that is being asked of the Marine Corps. While the Marine Corps has been involved in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom during the last decade

I think it is necessary to adept our tactics to defeat enemy’s more sophisticated aggressive operations toward us. It is said that the best defense is a good offense. That being said, we have to actively engaging the enemy targets and weakening the enemy’s operations against United States. Cleave argues that by working the foreign intelligence service as a strategic target globally, US counterintelligence should be able to leverage insights into adversary activities and vulnerabilities to direct CI operations to maximum effect. To including network analyses to map terrorist supply chains, support infrastructures, financial transactions, communications channels, recruitment and training activities, and other footprints serve to focus collection,

Both civilian and military members of the Intelligence Community perform the role of intelligence gathering, evaluating, analyzing and distributing it to concerned parties to allow for policy making and defense of American national interest (U.S Department of Homeland Security 2012). However, the major difference between the two is the type of information they gather and what it is used for. Civilian operations deal with a broad range of topics related to national security while the DIA, a military organization, focuses on military and defense operations (Kelly 18). Moreover, both have a different level of sovereignty, military members of the DIA, for example, are a part of the National Department of Defense and must report to them (Bradbury

The Information-Related Capability of Operational security (OPSEC) is defined as guarding information to help ensure that military operations stay safe, secure, and secret from enemy forces. This can include information such as Soldier numbers, times, dates, locations, Soldier strength, equipment availability, operation names and other data. OPSEC enhances mission success by preserving the advantages of secrecy and surprise. Terrorist organizations are continuously trying to gather information on U.S. military operations. The information they look for isn’t necessarily classified, but it is still difficult for someone outside the military community to obtain. Never underestimate the information you have, what you take for granted may be valuable

Operation tempo in cyber and electronic warfare can be described by the OODA (Observe Orient Decision Action) loop decision making process (Pace). The steps occupy a logical order of electronic attack or defense. First, a particular electromagnetic characteristic is observed by either human or electronic operators. For example, a spike in a frequency known to be used by the enemy, indicating a potential target for electronic attack, or a sudden increase in noise on friendly systems which could indicate jamming by an adversary. Orientation is the allocation of resources to either exploit or counter the observed characteristic, such as reconfiguring analog or digital tuners, clocks, or filters

The drawback of Estonia's information technology framework was that its defensive protocol was not much secure and could be easily hacked. Moreover, the country was much depended on internet.

Counterintelligence (CI) involves actions aimed at protecting the United States against foreign intelligence operations and espionage from penetration and disruption by hostile nations or their intelligence services (Lowenthal, 2014). Three main components of Counterintelligence include collection, defensive and offensive. The collection is the ability to gather intelligence information about rivalry capabilities against own nation; defensive part of CI involves measures to prevent and thwart other nations ' attempts to penetrate into own nation 's intelligence system; while an offensive aspect deal with running double agents to penetrate, manipulate, exploit, and control targeted adversaries. CI is said to be the most essential aspect of the intelligence disciplines, in the sense that it helps in collecting vast quantities of secret information and produce an excellent analysis of intelligence, although, ineffective counterintelligence measures may diminish confidence in the final results (Van Cleave, 2013).