AfricaHackOn and Books
How to get the books
I’ve been to several conferences this year,
speaking on the need to shift from basic Cyber Security to full-on Cyber Defense.
I’ve also been giving out books to winners of trivia rounds during my sessions.
The last conference focused more on MILINT — a term that’s still misunderstood in some circles.
MILINT as Part Two of the training...
Many still assume it just means "Military Intelligence," but that’s old thinking.
So, MILINT indeed refers to Military and Intelligence, not just "military."
It’s a combined operational and doctrinal umbrella used to describe overlapping tools, tactics,
techniques, training, and intelligence practices used by:
a) Military branches (Army, Navy, Air Force, etc.)
b) Intelligence services (civilian and military, e.g. NC3, NIS, MI, or specialized fusion centers)
It was dope seeing how many students and attendees
have been reading the C0nn3ctB4ck series — and
actually viewing it as a legit way to understand how cyber
can be used to support national security inititiaves.
Presenting at African Hackon
Apart from all the operations featured in the series,
Operation Oloibon took center stage.
In the books, readers get a behind-the-scenes
look at how real intelligence operations unfold — from tool development,
to planning and preparation, all the way through rehearsal and deployment.
Operation Oloibon
Of key interest is the first stage of such an op — the OPE.
In MILINT terms, that’s Operational Preparation of the Environment.
The goal here is to implant into the target’s environment and map it out internally,
before any heavier tools or weapons are deployed.
This stage is critical — not just for OPSEC, but also for DET during later maneuvers inside the AOR.
The OPE Implant execution objectives
Upon execution, operators gain deeper insight into the internal structure
of the target infrastructure. This stage mirrors passive recon — where externally,
one might run nmap scans on visible ports, identify domains and subdomains,
map out firewalls, scrape employee info, and mine public sources like
job listings and target's service metadata.
I hope we get to do more and educate our people — especially those in security services
and law enforcement — because they need this capability.
Note: Ever since this cyber capability
was diminished around 2018 (when it was under MOICT),
we’ve seen a rise in abductions and killings of social media users pushing dissenting narratives.
The current government lacks the tools to run cyber operations on online targets,
so they’re defaulting to field-style CT ops in Meatspace.
Problem is, those ops get seen by the whole world — while cyberspace operations would’ve kept things quieter.
Anyways, I’ll be putting up a blog soon that breaks this down properly.
