The OPSEC Five-Step Process is a process meant to prevent the inadvertent release of Critical Information. If individuals protect their pieces of the puzzle, adversaries will not be successful in obtaining a piece that could be aggregated with other information resulting in adverse consequences to our mission.
By integrating the OPSEC Five-Step Process methodology into existing procedures, each organization can accomplish protecting its activities by protecting information. OPSEC is a continuous process and shall be applied to each operation, project, and day-to- day operations and repeated throughout the duration of each.
The OPSEC Five-Step Process consists of:
- Identifying critical and sensitive data
- Analyzing the threat
- Determining the vulnerabilities
- Assessing the risk
- Developing and implementing countermeasures