Cyber awareness if it was designed for actual soldiers

Logan Nye
Apr 29, 2020 3:46 PM PDT
1 minute read
Wars photo

SUMMARY

Hey, remember in your last cyber awareness re-certification when you had to click through a whole scenario based on whether or not you would share industrial secrets on message boards with friends you had met at a science and engineering convention?…

Hey, remember in your last cyber awareness re-certification when you had to click through a whole scenario based on whether or not you would share industrial secrets on message boards with friends you had met at a science and engineering convention? Has anyone besides a senior officer or civilian engineer ran into that particular conundrum literally ever?


If the security pros were really going to prepare standard soldiers on the line for how to defend Army networks from unsavory actors, they can probably jettison entire sections of the cyber awareness training and add a short text document like the one below:

Seriously, everyone, we let the USO build so many centers on our bases for a reason. Get some pizza, watch the game, and do your shady downloads there.

(U.S. Air Force Airman 1st Class Eric M. Fisher)

Download your movies (porn) on the USO or morale networks

Yeah, we know you guys find more and more ways to download things you shouldn't on the Army networks. We try to limit the sites you can connect to, the types of files you can download, and even what ways you can get the files off of the computer afterwards. But still, you find ways to email each other .jpgs and .movs of disgusting stuff.

Disgusting stuff that has viruses hidden in it. No, not HPV — computer viruses. We let the USO set up wifi on base, we set up morale wifi on base. And we don't monitor what you download directly to your personal devices. Please, please stop downloading your movies to the government computers.

Please. STAHP.

(U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Neysa Canfield)

Stop clicking on email links. Just stop. Google the sites and stories you want.

We've given so many warnings about phishing and spear phishing attacks, but soldiers keep getting caught in these kinds of attacks. So, from now on, when you see an email you want to click on, please just Google the keywords for the site you wanted to visit.

Google will typically screen out malicious sites, making it much better at this than you are. So stop even trying to decide which links are safe and which aren't. Just stop clicking on things.

Stop clicking past all the security warnings

The Army has a problem with security certificates, meaning that you're going to have to tell a few of your browser tools to make security exemptions for the army.mil sites. Obviously not best practice, sorry about that, but please stop adding security exemptions for other sites all over the web.

Army.mil sites flag security checks because it takes an act of Congress to update all of our certificates. The other sites you visit flag security checks because they're trying to turn on your camera while you're watching the vids so they can blackmail you with the resulting imagery. Oh, speaking of blackmail bait:

Civilian teaches a soldier how to use a tactical smartphone without sending pictures of his junk to social media contacts who aren't actually hot girls.

(U.S. Army Staff Sgt. James Avery)

The 19-year-olds messaging with you aren't real and don't want your dad bod

Hate to tell you this, but most of you've gotten up in pounds as you've gotten up in rank, and even those of you who have not have gotten up in age. And, I know it's a big surprise, but 19-year-old girls are typically into college boys with six packs. So, please, start feeling more suspicious than horny when you get texts, Tinder matches, or private messages from people way too attractive to be interested in you.

Otherwise, these people engage in lengthy conversations where you incriminate yourself in conspiracies to meet them in hotels, and then they blackmail you for money or government secrets. Just watch adult sites instead. (But, again, use the morale or USO internet, not the NIPR. Not. NIPR.)

Sgt. Hercules can lift any load, but can he set a secure password?

(U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Brian Cline)

Change your passwords and stop using nicknames for your genitals

Whether you're accessing your premium subscription on that adult website, getting into your email, or opening a new Grindr account, please stop using the same passwords for everything. And please, please stop using your children's names, birthdates and anniversaries, and favorite car manufacturer for passwords.

No, your genital nicknames aren't any better, especially since you all keep bragging about the names on Reddit and Facebook.

We're tired of putting up pictures of soldiers in front of computers or holding smartphones, so here's an Army colonel addressing a conference as a video game avatar.

(U.S. Army)

Why do you update your Steam games every day but virus scans only when you buy new computers?

You know how your Steam library is automatically updated, all you gamers out there? For everyone else, it's sort of like when Flash player needs another update. It happens frequently, you won't notice the difference unless you read the patch notes, and it's actually essential that you do the updates.

So, new rule, please set your virus protections to automatically update. If you won't or can't do that, then update your virus definitions every time Flash or Steam initiates an update.

Also, please figure out how computers work

This, by the way, gets to a larger issue that isn't necessarily a direct cyber threat, but it's honestly just sort of grating, and even the game-playing nerds aren't immune to this: figure out how your computers work. Not only would this help you avoid cyber threats better, but it would also cut down on the number of times we hurt ourselves biting our tongues.

It's just so exhausting hearing people talk about buying a new hard drive to improve their frame rates or graphics, or people getting 4K monitors when their video cards can't support it. Just, please, learn how computers actually work before you get a new MILITARY STAR card to fill with ill-considered purchases.

Seriously, PC Building Simulator is a thing now.

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