National Security

Social Media and National Security

Social media sites grew during this time, allowing individuals to come together for the exchange of ideas, concerns, and information about national security. But while social media sites allow individuals to build and maintain relationships, they also have the potential to affect government security; therefore, they are taken into consideration when security measures are implemented by governments. For example, in 2009, the U.S. military considered a near-total ban on social networking sites such as Twitter, eBay, and Facebook. The worry was that such sites can make it easy for hackers or foreign government-sponsored terrorists to gain access to military networks. In 2011, the Russian security service proposed a ban on Hotmail, Gmail, and Skype because of concerns that their uncontrolled use could pose a security threat to the nation.

Such sites also have caused challenges for government transparency as security threats emerge. As more government employees use Twitter and Facebook, security becomes a central concern. In 2010, the botnet virus compromised a number of government systems by gathering login credentials from social networking sites. The U.S. government was not only network compromised but government computers in Mexico, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey were affected as well. An even higher-profile social network security lapse involved U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who facilitated a damaging breach of U.S. national security by copying thousands of classified documents related to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and transferring them to the Website WikiLeaks. As a site dedicated to publishing government secrets, WikiLeaks posted the documents from Bradley, in addition to several hundred thousand documents from U.S. State Department cables detailing interactions with foreign powers. Such network breaches and security lapses exploited by sites such as WikiLeaks outline the network flaws that pose a serious threat.

Social networks also have the ability to compromise national security through terrorism. While social networks among terrorists do form via traditional means, they can also flourish online, because the Internet offers anonymity, interactivity, and a resilient infrastructure. Regardless of what method terrorist networks use, the techniques for terrorist network analysis are similar and are a central security component. A popular technique involves node discovery. The nodes of a network are the hubs at which different members of the network are connected. Usually, ordinary members have one or two connections; nodes can have several; and the critical nodes, the hubs, have many more. A terrorist cell's increased presence on the Internet shows weakness, not strength, because it allows for nodes to surface. Another broader term for social network analysis is called data mining. Such analysis of social networks is still being developed.

Some argue that nations must adopt a comprehensive strategy for using social media to improve national security, using software and online tools that allow for connectedness and online communication, as such sites also offer the ability to bolster national security. For example, government agencies in several nations invest resources in social network analysis. Because social networking [Page 570]sites possess security risks through communication in a decentralized, leaderless, geographically dispersed group of users, such threats are most easily countered by finding opinion leaders and liaisons within the network and monitoring them. Governments also see the potential in harnessing the influence of social networks to better interact with citizens to anticipate and plan for emerging issues directly related to national security.

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