IDF cracks down on social media oversharing - to prevent another October 2.0

The IDF's Information Security Department is working to prevent the sort of information leaking that helped Hamas carry out its attacks on IDF bases on October 7, according to a report tonight (Tuesday) by Kann News.

According to the report, the effort is based on staff work conducted by the Information Security Department, and will begin with restricting information inside the IDF Intelligence Directorate, with a much closer and stricter approach to who has access to what information, depending on its classification.

Regarding social media, strict new policies will be put in place as to who can have an account and what sort of account - including who they can tag while serving.

The plan is to start with restrictions and new policies within the IDF Intelligence Directorate, and then extend the policies to the whole of the IDF.

This new policy was put in place after the IDF discovered during investigations that much of the intelligence used by Hamas to attack IDF bases on October 7, killing, wounding, and kidnapping soldiers and officers, was courtesy of open source information freely available on social media platforms. This includes changing of guards, important locations within bases, and more.

Another vulnerability of IDF bases on October 7 was the small number of soldiers defending them. According to a longstanding practice in the IDF known as "shutdown" or "hadmama" (literally: silencing), military bases and entire units would almost entirely leave for home during the end of the summer or during the Jewish holiday season to be with friends and family.

The bases would then be left with skeleton crews to maintain bare-bones functions and protection from infiltration or attacks.

IDF bases on October 7 were operating on such a basis, with multiple senior officers on leave or away from the base, about half of the needed soldiers on the Gaza border, and general atmosphere of inaction. This state of affairs made it dangerously easy for Hamas units to infiltrate and directly attack and kill and capture soldiers on a given base.

IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said the suspension of this policy, which has been in force ever since October 7, will continue. There will continue to be normal furlough and vacation time for soldiers and officers, but the emptying out of bases and unit areas will no longer be allowed for security reasons.