Surf Wiki
Save to docs
engineering

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Operations security

Counterespionage safety procedures and practices

Operations security
Summary

Counterespionage safety procedures and practices

[[World War II]] propaganda poster which popularized the cautionary phrase "[[Loose lips sink ships]]"

Operations security (OPSEC) is a process that identifies critical information to determine whether friendly actions can be observed by enemy intelligence, 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.

The term "operations security" was coined by the United States military during the Vietnam War.

History

Vietnam

In 1966, United States Admiral Ulysses Sharp established a multidisciplinary security team to investigate the failure of certain combat operations during the Vietnam War. This operation was dubbed Operation Purple Dragon, and included personnel from the National Security Agency and the Department of Defense.

When the operation concluded, the Purple Dragon team codified their recommendations. They called the process "Operations Security" in order to distinguish the process from existing processes and ensure continued inter-agency support.

NSDD 298

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 298. This document established the National Operations Security Program and named the Director of the National Security Agency as the executive agent for inter-agency OPSEC support. This document also established the Interagency OPSEC Support Staff (IOSS).

Private-sector application

The private sector has also adopted OPSEC as a defensive measure against competitive intelligence collection efforts.

IT security

NIST SP 800-53 defines OPSEC as the "process by which potential adversaries can be denied information about capabilities and intentions by identifying, controlling, and protecting generally unclassified evidence of the planning and execution of sensitive activities."

References

References

  1. "PURPLE DRAGON: The Formations of OPSEC". National Security Agency.
  2. "The Origin of OPSEC- from the dragon's mouth".
  3. "About the IOSS". Interagency OPSEC Support Staff.
  4. Kahaner, Larry. (1997). "Competitive Intelligence". [[Simon & Schuster]].
  5. "Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations". Joint Task Force.
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

information-operations-and-warfare espionage cybersecurity-engineering
Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Operations security — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report