Title: Social Media use in the Military Sector - Infosec Resources
Headings: Social Media use in the Military Sector
Social Media use in the Military Sector
Introduction
Social media in military sector
Figure 1 – DoD Social Media Space
Figure 2 – Emerging Threat and their trends in the area of Social Technology (ENISA)
Psychological Operations (PsyOps)
OSINT
“Understanding what affects such online behavior is needed for trend forecasting.”
Figure 3 – Use of Facebook for propaganda by Jihad and Mujahideen terrorist groups
Data mining in social media
Malware-based cyber attacks
Figure 6 – Koobface schema
Social media to host C&C server
Figure 7 – Example Botnet based on Social Networks
Cyber espionage
Figure 8 – Attack to President’s office occurred in May 2012
Conclusions
References

Content: “Attention all Facebookers, Twitter tweeters and YouTubers: a new Defense Department policy authorizes you to access these and other Web 2.0 platforms from non classified government computers, as long as it doesn’t compromise operational security or involve prohibited activities or Web sites.” The web site is designed to help the DoD community to use social media and other Internet-based Capabilities (IbC) responsibly and effectively. According to the last report from ENISA titled “ Threat Landscape report, “ social media is one of the sectors most targeted by cyber threats according to current threat trends for emerging areas of Information Technology. The report proposes the following top emerging threats for social technology: Figure 2 – Emerging Threat and their trends in the area of Social Technology (ENISA)
Due to the diffusion of social technologies, attackers will continue to develop new techniques to attack and exploit social media platforms. The situation is very serious if we consider the increasing interconnections with other sectors such as the Internet of Thinks, healthcare or education. “Existing functions of social media can be used to achieve misinformation and eventually control political expression.” Through the exploitation of social networks, it is possible to conduct cyber espionage campaigns infiltrating, for example, a limited number of individuals belonging to specific groups. Psychological Operations (PsyOps)
Social media networks are privileged channels to adopt for psychological operations, also known as PsyOps, which are organized media operations to broadcast information to influence the “sentiment” (e.g. emotions, motives, objective reasoning) of large masses, such as a population or the politics of governments.