Airmen learn about security on Cyber Day Published Sept. 21, 2010 By Tech. Sgt. Mike Gunter 21st Communications Squadron PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Peterson Airmen attended "Cyber Awareness Day" Sept. 10, to learn about the important issues of cyber security and the problems each Air Force network user encounters. It is critical to keep classified information separate from unclassified information across the network, said Airman 1st Class Amanda Lovins, who spoke to Airmen at cyber day. She emphasized the impact of allowing classified material onto the unclassified network. When classified messages cross into the unsecure network a serious threat is posed to mission capability. A classified message incident is opened to counter the threat to the mission, secure classified material, and to track down and securely sanitize the non-classified system of all classified material. This wastes many man hours to fix the issue, Airman Lovins said. In addition to loss of systems resources there is exposure of classified data to unnecessary risk. "So, the bottom line is all users should always be aware of which system they are on and act accordingly," she said. Staff Sgt. Kevin Goldman briefed Airmen on the importance of passwords. Users gain continual access to the network and they use passwords to gain that access, he said. Ultimately, end users are the key to success in securing the network through use of password management. "The stronger the password is, the harder it is for the bad guys to crack the password," he said. Cracking passwords is a simplified way to say that the bad guy uses software to 'sniff' and capture packets of information -- everything the user actually does moment to moment on the machine they are using. These packets even contain pieces of passwords that can be captured and processed by an unseen enemy. So, a note to the end user: always use good password management, Sergeant Goldman said. Here are five keys to password strength: Use at least eight characters; try longer phrases; choose related, not identical, passwords; avoid personal information and lastly; keep passwords secret. 2nd Lt. Jerad Sayler spoke about the website Wikileaks, where several classified documents recently surfaced and were propagated across the web last month. Untold and unknown damage has been done by the 1.2 million documents known to have been leaked to this website, Lieutenant Sayler said. "Again and again the user must ensure they understand and help mitigate the risk to the network," Lieutenant Sayler said. "Users don't have to be administrators nor do they need specialized training to accomplish this task - they just need to think about where they are on the network and what they are clicking on."