The basics of OPSEC

Who knows you are a prepper?  Or how much food you have stocked up? It could be just family and friends, or do your coworkers and acquaintances know as well.It may seem like a trivial thing to talk about prepping, because it can easily be viewed as a hobby. The problem is that if life ever comes down to a survival situation, then anyone with knowledge about you and your family could become a threat
.  People can become very motivated when hungry.

This is something we have to think about as preppers, because we are trying to protect our family from a myriad of threats. It may not be a pleasant thought, but someday during an emergency you may need your resources and supplies to support your own family. The last thing you need is someone coming for handouts or even worse, to forcibly take what you have. That’s where OPSEC comes in. When implemented correctly it offers an extra layer of protection over your family. OPSEC, short for operational security, is the process in which we evaluate possible threats. When threats are identified, we can then limit the amount of information we provide to them that may put us at risk.

There are several things you can do to ensure OPSEC.  For our purposes I have simplified the process into three things you need to decide upon. First decide what information needs protecting. Next who is allowed access to that information, and finally how you can prevent that information from being inadvertently released.

First you have to decide what information is important, and needs to be safeguarded.  There are obvious things such as social security numbers, passwords, and bank accounts. You probably already protect these on an everyday basis anyways.  When it comes to prepping though you have to decide which information could possibly be used against you by another person in the event of a survival situation.  Here is a list of a few things you can consider keeping secure. There are others of course, this is just to get your mind working and thinking about what’s important.

1.       Where you live.

2.       Bug out locations.

3.       What kind of supplies you have stocked and where they are kept.

4.       Any caches you may have set up.

5.       Being part of a prepper group.

6.       Size of your family.

Next you need to identify who is allowed access to sensitive information. This is something that you have to decide for yourself because you are the only person who knows who can be trusted. This can depend on the kind of supplies you have stocked up. If you have an abundance of supplies that can support much more than your family’s needs, you could think about letting a trusted person in on your group. If you don’t have enough supplies, then you have to be very stringent about who knows about it.  This can be tricky and you may need to approach each person differently. For example your friends and family, after all they should be the most trusted people in your life, but if they don’t prepare themselves, they may come to you someday wanting supplies. You then could be in a position to have to choose between them and your own children. Not a decision anyone wants to make, but still something to think about.

Finally you need to identify different ways OPSEC can be compromised, either on purpose or accidentally. You need to discuss with your family who is privy to the information, and that generally talking about certain subjects is not allowed. Explain that the reason for secrecy is for the protection of the family. You have to be strict with the rules. If someone is not part of your trusted group, no information should be passed onto them.A major concern for OPSEC today is how we connect to the world, like through social network platforms. What we say on Facebook, or twitter is permanent, and for a large part available for everyone to see. Also the more people that have access to the information the greater the chance of it getting out. Keep the amount of people who are trusted to a minimum. Another thing you should control is what you are throwing away. An empty box is an advertisement that you just bought whatever was inside it. Cut up boxes and shred important documents. Double bag items that cant be shredded because you never know what your garbageman can learn from your trash. Once you properly asses the different weaknesses with your own security, there will be much less chance of it failing. 

At first you may think that this is being a bit paranoid, but if you want to go through the trouble of properly preparing your family for disaster, then why would you risk its failure because someone said too much to the wrong person? It all comes down to common sense. Don’t brag to people about your awesome prepping group, or the piece of land that you have acquired. If it’s a person you wouldn’t trust with your personal information, then don’t trust them with your prepping information and expect any person who knows about your preparations to show up at your door when a crisis strikes.