February 04, 2020
When the homefront becomes the (cyber) front line
American soldiers have long marched off to war with one assurance: by fighting abroad they were keeping their families safe at home. Today, advances in digital technology combined with unregulated data collection threaten to make the homefront the military’s new front line. The ability to target military families using their digital footprint significantly alters the risk of military service and potentially changes the calculus of war.
Recently, Military Times reported that military family members of soldiers deployed in Kuwait had received “menacing messages” via social media that appeared to target families of the 82nd Airborne Division. An unnamed source believed that the family members had been identified through a hacked internet service provider at the forward location.
This is not the first time service members or their families have been targeted in this fashion and reflects a trend of threats that are not receiving enough attention. The larger a person’s digital footprint, the more vulnerable they and their families are to being targeted.
Read the full article in Fifth Domain.
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