FORT BELVOIR, Va. –
During September, the Defense Logistics Agency joins other federal agencies in raising employees’ awareness of violence and cyberattacks from their co-workers as part of Insider Threat Awareness Month, which also focuses on security this year.
DLA Chief of Staff Kristin French is encouraging senior leaders and supervisors to promote good security practices and insider threat awareness among their staffs with a focus on five weekly themes:
- Week one – Security awareness
- Week two – How to report concerning behavior
- Week three – Controlled unclassified information policy
- Week four – Preventing inadvertent disclosures
- Week five – Resiliency
DLA’s Insider Threat Program is managed by DLA Intelligence and is designed to reduce risks to DLA information, people, facilities and mission. Insider threats include espionage, unauthorized disclosure, workplace violence, sabotage, fraud, security violations and actions that unintentionally increase vulnerabilities.
One way to counter insider threats is through good security practices, especially as more employees telework. Poor operations security practices recently prompted the Secretary of Defense to require new mandatory training reinforcing employees’ responsibility to protect sensitive, non-public information.
Cases of espionage, such as the Defense Department linguist charged with transmitting classified information to a foreign national in March, receive widespread media coverage. But the unwitting compromise of information through poor security practices is also detrimental and could allow adversaries to gain advantage over national interests.
These are some of the ways employees can protect sensitive information:
- Encrypt email when sending sensitive information.
- Review information for sensitivity before posting it on social media or websites.
- Use passwords to protect information on shared drives.
- Apply the need-to-know principle to sensitive information.
- Double check before clicking on links within emails.
- Turn off personal digital assistants like Amazon Echo, Google Home or Apple Siri that might be listening to work-related conversations.
- Avoid conducting sensitive phone conversations in the vicinity of family and friends.