By Mike Fong
May 14, 2021
In recent years, the Department of Defense has made a number of efforts to tackle the problems presented by personnel using mobile devices. In 2018, the DOD restricted smartphone usage within secure spaces at the Pentagon -- carving out an exception for government-issued devices with the cameras and microphones removed -- and banned active-duty military from using mobile apps that tap GPS. From a distance, these moves may have seemed like overreactions.
Yet the Pentagon knew that any smartphone, when targeted by a threat actor of the nation-state variety, can be turned against its user and repurposed not just as a real-time location tracker but as a spying and eavesdropping device. Seen in this light, the departmentâs struggles to strike a workable balance between the utility and security risks of mobile devices are understandable, especially given the critical nature of DOD operations.