How to Protect Government and Personal Information

Week of September 06, 2010

The U.S. Air Forces in Europe new Information Assurance Awareness Campaign is focusing on educating servicemembers and their families on how they can safeguard not only their government systems, but personal ones, too. Password security, social media/networking and Webmail threats, online shopping safety, e-mail scams, password protection, free home use anti-virus, default password and phishing will be highlighted during the annual campaign. Servicemembers can access https://infosec.navy.mil/av/index.jsp from home or work if they have a CAC card and reader to download free anti-virus software for use on their personal computers.

The Air Force is also currently advising servicemembers to not post classified, restricted distribution, proprietary or For Official Use Only information on public websites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blog sites, etc. The release of personally identifiable information is also a concern. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reports that fraudsters continue to hijack accounts on social networking sites. Unclassified but sensitive information such as detailed mission statements, operations schedules, unit recall rosters, standing operating procedures and policy memorandums require special handling and should also not be posted on public websites.