Operations security (OPSEC) is a process that identifies critical information to determine if friendly actions can be observed by adversary intelligence systems, determines if information obtained by adversaries could be interpreted to be useful to them, and then executes selected measures that eliminate or reduce adversary exploitation of friendly critical information.
Though the above statement is true in its official military format, OPSEC is the process of protecting little pieces of data that could be grouped together to give the bigger picture. OPSEC is the protecting of critical information deemed mission essential from military commanders. Protecting this critical information is through the use of email encryption software, careful of who may be listening to you (like in a hotel bar), paying close attention to a picture you have taken (back ground) or not talking openly on social media sites about information on the unit's critical information list (military deployments, shortages of equipment or movement of VIPs).
Read more about Operations Security: Process, Uses, Other Measures That Impact OPSEC
Famous quotes containing the words operations and/or security:
“A sociosphere of contact, control, persuasion and dissuasion, of exhibitions of inhibitions in massive or homeopathic doses...: this is obscenity. All structures turned inside out and exhibited, all operations rendered visible. In America this goes all the way from the bewildering network of aerial telephone and electric wires ... to the concrete multiplication of all the bodily functions in the home, the litany of ingredients on the tiniest can of food, the exhibition of income or IQ.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed. The experience of every-day life fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try his strength. The same is historically true of governments. Really peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations, with the result that peace is maintained.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)