Operations security is technically a procedure or a process of classifying, evaluating, and controlling pertinent data and information of an organization. Indeed, it is everyone’s responsibility to protect and secure our personal information to others. According to a review report, operations security is a fundamental instrument for viewing any operations or activity that may pose harmful outcomes to your accounts. It provides necessary risk assessments and countermeasures against such threats and coercions about a particular claim or rights. There are several ways on how operation securities can be established. One common example is that of protecting the country’s military information which primarily includes capabilities, manufactures, purposes, vulnerabilities, effectiveness, type, etc. Through operations security, one is able to keep track of the critical information of the military force that may affect millions of people if binge in the public. The military organization shall be responsible enough to hold their critical military figures since others may use it against them. Another example is that of relevant data related to scientific and technological inquiries. By protecting the company’s research and technology, technical specifications, marketing plans, etc., one is able to conserve their information without any hazards that they may encounter in their future business transactions. One particular system for this is through the use of patents and licenses. By providing licensed permits and exclusive rights to their particular product or technology, the organization may be able to preserve their information and may only be revealed in a legal transaction. Lastly, it is also important to keep and hold off the different policies and services of law enforcements that may leek information on the public. Examples include the witnesses of the criminal case, the evidence of a murder crime, the raids and whereabouts of a particular notorious gang, etc. These particular elements of operation security are all vital towards protection rights (Behringer, n.d.). Hence, people must not rely solely on the security procedures that we follow, but also to act upon the situation. Meaning, if you say something suspicious about someone’s actions, one must not be hesitant to act upon the consequences and take precautionary actions to prevent such threat on private information.
According to Behringer (n.d.), there are three basic components of operational security that must be accounted for: architecture, implementation, and the operation itself. The element of architecture primarily involves the formal specification – methods, procedures, materials, etc. In a house system, for example, an operational security may involve the size of your house, the number of CCTV cameras needed, the number of persons, etc. All the important mechanisms of the operational security must be established in this component. In a manufacturing company, for example, it is important to evaluate the product specifications, the quantity and quality of the manufactured products, the different certifications attached to the industry, the management process control systems, etc. The second component involves the proper implementation of the architecture or the specifications. This may include advanced procedures that may help increase the security of a specific data or information. In a house system, one may opt to hire for security guards to ensure that you will not be robbed whenever you are on a vacation. You may also implement security policies together with your neighbours to ensure that security guidelines among your locality can act as tools to promote immediate safety methods. The last component is the operation of the necessary security measures. This particular procedure includes strong passwords to your accounts, a complex configuration setup of your cameras and computers, and more importantly, the physical security of your information. In a house, for example, it is safer to include several locks on your door to provide guarantee that no one will attempt to break-in your house. By establishing a well-operated and complex operations security, one is able to protect such relevant data and information that the adversary desires, thereby, limiting their chances towards any possible criminal offense that may inflict to them.
Important data and information should be classified and well-protected by operations security to ensure that it will not be used against the owner itself. For example, if there is no preventive security on you bank accounts, there will be a greater possibility that someone will try to acquire your information for them to access those personal accounts of yours.
Hacker tools are of great importance to the adversaries because it enabled them to access the accounts of other people without analysing much of the securities enclosed to it (Introduction to Operations Security, 2011). By establishing an operations security, there will be no major problem if an adversary will try to access your personal accounts because of the complexity of the configurations enclosed in the security, whereas any form of hacker tools cannot secure a connection in your accounts.
Clipping level sets a certain degree of maximum number of errors allowed before certain suspicious actions may be exposed. This particular operations security is most common on bank account wherein a user is asked to input for her password to access his account. For instance, a maximum number of 3 errors were committed, the account will be temporarily blocked to avoid any further access.
Sensitive data and information shall have a corresponding tag and point of critical level so that specific security methods shall be applied to the object since there is a range of security measures to be considered depending on the degree of complexity of the needed information.
Proper fault-tolerant mechanism is important so that it is easier to determine and control the problem once specific equipment fails to function well. It is necessary so that no further actions are needed in case the equipment used in operations security malfunctions.
A teardrop attack should be avoided in operations security to avoid any failure or misconfiguration on the system. It is essential that a security has been well-established so that the defense system will accurately determine the inhibitors of the structure itself.
For a corresponding email messages, it is important that a proper operational security is established so that there would be no misconfigurations on the setup as well as to avoid any spam messages to be delivered to the clients. Spam messages can be considered as an email virus in which a user does not allow any access on their email accounts.
Phishing is very evident in cases of chained text messages wherein a random sender will send a text message asking for the personal accounts and information of the receiver. Once succeeded, the sender will try to access their personal accounts to be used for their own interests. By implementing a proper operational security, the phone will try to determine the exact name and location of the sender for proper case report. There are lots of software applications that are commercially available to secure important information of the user.
References
Behringer, M. (n.d.). Understanding operational security. Web. Retrieved 23 Feb 2016. <http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/security-center/understanding-operational-security.html>
Introduction to Operations Security (OPSEC) [Powerpoint]. (2011). 1-17.
