031718ZOCT26

Here’s the deal, DTG’ers, smartwatches, just like the @apple watch the acting Secretary of the Army is rockin’ here, can expose a wearer’s location, routines, relationships, and communications. The Department’s published geolocation guidance explicitly identifies smartwatches as “risks to personnel and operations.” For sensitive personnel, the greatest concern is often ordinary recording and sharing—not a sophisticated hack. The exposure risk depends on the model, watch operating system, permissions, connected services, and adversary access and sophistication. Smartwatches present a number of OPSEC, counterintelligence, or surveillance risks: location and movement history; patterns of life; identification and associations; wireless detection; location-sharing access; communications exposure; personal profiling; and targeted compromise or capture. Several distinctions prevent overstating—or underestimating—the risk: 1) GPS receives satellite signals; it does not itself broadcast your position. Recording, uploading, location sharing, and transmitting radios create the exposure. 2) Smartwatches can record GPS workouts independently, and cellular models can communicate independently when service is available. 3) Airplane mode is not guaranteed radio silence. For example, Apple Watch keeps Bluetooth enabled by default in airplane mode. 4) Bluetooth is not a universally readable tracking beacon. For example, Apple encrypts watch–phone communications and rotates Bluetooth addresses to mitigate local tracking. These protections complicate surveillance, but do not eliminate the risk. 5) Third-party health data sharing and compromised endpoints create separate exposure pathways. To be fair, smartphones present the same OPSEC, counterintelligence, and surveillance vulnerabilities. So, knowing the vulnerabilities and how to mitigate them to an acceptable risk for you and your team is key. Dr. DTG wants y’all to be safe out there in the internet-of-things operational environment! #presentandready SEND IT! ~ PRESENT & READY #apple #safety #watch #opsec

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