No social networking for marines

Posted by Caitlin on August 5th, 2009

According to Wired, the U.S. Marine Corps has banned Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other social media websites from its networks, effective immediately. According to the Marine Corps, these websites are "a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries."

The ban comes in response to a warning from U.S. Strategic Command, which has been considering banning these websites for the entire Defense Department, due to network security concerns. A Stratcom source explained, "The mechanisms for social networking were never designed for security and filtering. They make it way too easy for people with bad intentions to push malicious code to unsuspecting users."

The ban will last for one year. If a "mission critical need" can be proven a waiver will be issued. In response to the ban, Pentagon social media czar Price Floyd commented that while security is crucial, "What we can't do is let security concerns trump doing business. We have to do business… We need to be everywhere men and women in uniform are and the public is. If that's MySpace and YouTube, that's where we need to be, too."

Social media websites present security dilemmas for civilians, as well. If this is a concern for you, you may be interested in our Facebook Identity Theft Prevention Guide or our MySpace Identity Theft Prevention Guide. And, of course, you should protect your computer with Internet security software, and perhaps consider identity theft protection.