No More Dot-Mil Accounts on Dating Sites

The Pentagon this month plans to distribute a new policy on personal social media use that tells troops to hide certain identifying information when interacting online, Defense Department officials tell Nextgov.

Increasingly, hackers are gleaning sensitive work details from social networks by drawing inferences from posts, such as military unit locations, and by penetrating the actual sites. Defense officials on Thursday acknowledged they are aware of a reported MilitarySingles.com breach that may have exposed soldiers’ dot-mil e-mail addresses and passwords.

“Our future instruction that specifically addresses use of commercial social media will direct all DoD employees to ‘Use non-mission related contact information, such as telephone numbers or postal and email addresses, to establish personal accounts, when such information is required,’” Defense spokeswoman Lt. Col. April Cunningham said in a statement.”

The directive is expected to be released in late May.

Despite the forthcoming policy, dot-mil email addresses may still appear in some personal communications, partly because family members and guests using the Army Knowledge Online service are issued military addresses, Cunningham said.