Protecting information and all assets is critical in today’s time. The military faces three major types of threats: Employees, Zero-Day Exploits, and Cyber Espionage. It is imperative, due to the information and assets on-hand, that the military mitigates these risks.

The first major threat, employees, is a very common threat to all organizations. Employees can be broken down into three types of threats which include, employees that are careless and untrained, employees that are tricked or fall prey to social engineering, and employees with malicious intentions. This will always be a potential threat because every organization requires employees to run and function. Protecting a network and data should be top priority for every organization. With policies, procedures, and training implemented, employees will have a better understanding of what is allowed on their organization’s network, how to properly navigate the system, and how to safeguard all information contained within the network. Policies and procedures also inform employees of what practices are in the event information is disclosed without authorization and any and all penalties that may go along with them. Having this information readily available to employees ensures they are aware the organization is serious about protecting all assets and information and will enforce legal action if needed.

Since employees are the individuals that have access to all information, some of which is sensitive, they need to understand what social engineering is. This is where training comes into view. The military does not take training related to securing its information seriously enough. Most average users on the military network could not spot an email intentionally created with inaccurate details which would throw up a red flag to trained users. Kevin Mutnik in a presentation given to military leaders said it