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Sample Acceptable Use Policy August 9, 2008

Posted by timsteiner in Information Security, Research.
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Acceptable Use Policy

1.0 Overview

The intention for publishing an Acceptable Use Policy are not to impose restrictions that are contrary to LedGrafix’s established culture of openness, trust and integrity. LedGrafix is committed to protecting ‘s employees, partners and the company from illegal or damaging actions by individuals, either knowingly or unknowingly.

Internet/Intranet/Extranet-related systems, including but not limited to computer equipment, software, operating systems, storage media, network accounts providing electronic mail, WWW browsing, and FTP, are the property of LedGrafix. These systems are to be used for business purposes in serving the interests of the company, and of our clients and customers in the course of normal operations. Please review Human Resources policies for further details.

Effective security is a team effort involving the participation and support of every LedGrafix employee and affiliate who deals with information and/or information systems. It is the responsibility of every computer user to know these guidelines, and to conduct their activities accordingly.

2.0 Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to outline the acceptable use of computer equipment at LedGrafix. These rules are in place to protect the employee and LedGrafix. Inappropriate use exposes LedGrafix to risks including virus attacks, compromise of network systems and services, and legal issues.

3.0 Scope

This policy applies to employees, contractors, consultants, temporaries, and other workers at LedGrafix, including all personnel affiliated with third parties. This policy applies to all equipment that is owned or leased by LedGrafix.

4.0 Policy

4.1 General Use and Ownership

  1. While LedGrafix ‘s network administration desires to provide a reasonable level of privacy, users should be aware that the data they create on the corporate systems remains the property of LedGrafix. Because of the need to protect LedGrafix ‘s network, management cannot guarantee the confidentiality of information stored on any network device belonging to LedGrafix.

  2. Employees are responsible for exercising good judgment regarding the reasonableness of personal use. Individual departments are responsible for creating guidelines concerning personal use of Internet/Intranet/Extranet systems. In the absence of such policies, employees should be guided by departmental policies on personal use, and if there is any uncertainty, employees should consult their supervisor or manager.

  3. LedGrafix recommends that any information that users consider sensitive or vulnerable be encrypted.

  4. For security and network maintenance purposes, authorized individuals within LedGrafix may monitor equipment, systems and network traffic at any time.

  5. LedGrafix reserves the right to audit networks and systems on a periodic basis to ensure compliance with this policy.

4.2 Security and Proprietary Information

  1. The user interface for information contained on Internet/Intranet/Extranet-related systems should be classified as either confidential or not confidential, as defined by corporate confidentiality guidelines, details of which can be found in Human Resources policies. Examples of confidential information include but are not limited to: company private, corporate strategies, competitor sensitive, trade secrets, specifications, customer lists, and research data. Employees should take all necessary steps to prevent unauthorized access to this information.

  2. Keep passwords secure and do not share accounts. Authorized users are responsible for the security of their passwords and accounts. System level passwords should be changed quarterly, user level passwords should be changed every six months.

  3. All PCs, laptops and workstations should be secured with a password-protected screensaver with the automatic activation feature set at 10 minutes or less, or by logging-off (control-alt-delete for Win2K users) when the host will be unattended.

  4. Use encryption of information in compliance with LedGrafix Acceptable Encryption Use policy.

  5. Because information contained on portable computers is especially vulnerable, special care should be exercised. Protect laptops in accordance with the “Laptop Security Tips”.

  6. Postings by employees from a LedGrafix email address to newsgroups should contain a disclaimer stating that the opinions expressed are strictly their own and not necessarily those of LedGrafix, unless posting is in the course of business duties.

  7. All hosts used by the employee that are connected to the LedGrafix Internet/Intranet/Extranet, whether owned by the employee or LedGrafix >, shall be continually executing approved virus-scanning software with a current virus database unless overridden by departmental or group policy.

  8. Employees must use extreme caution when opening e-mail attachments received from unknown senders, which may contain viruses, e-mail bombs, or Trojan horse code.

4.3. Unacceptable Use

The following activities are, in general, prohibited. Employees may be exempted from these restrictions during the course of their legitimate job responsibilities (e.g., systems administration staff may have a need to disable the network access of a host if that host is disrupting production services).

Under no circumstances is an employee of LedGrafix authorized to engage in any activity that is illegal under local, state, federal or international law while utilizing LedGrafix owned resources.

The lists below are by no means exhaustive, but attempt to provide a framework for activities which fall into the category of unacceptable use.

System and Network Activities

The following activities are strictly prohibited, with no exceptions:

  1. Violations of the rights of any person or company protected by copyright, trade secret, patent or other intellectual property, or similar laws or regulations, including, but not limited to, the installation or distribution of “pirated” or other software products that are not appropriately licensed for use by LedGrafix

  2. Unauthorized copying of copyrighted material including, but not limited to, digitization and distribution of photographs from magazines, books or other copyrighted sources, copyrighted music, and the installation of any copyrighted software for which LedGrafix or the end user does not have an active license is strictly prohibited.

  3. Exporting software, technical information, encryption software or technology, in violation of international or regional export control laws, is illegal. The appropriate management should be consulted prior to export of any material that is in question.

  4. Introduction of malicious programs into the network or server (e.g., viruses, worms, Trojan horses, e-mail bombs, etc.).

  5. Revealing your account password to others or allowing use of your account by others. This includes family and other household members when work is being done at home.

  6. Using a LedGrafix computing asset to actively engage in procuring or transmitting material that is in violation of sexual harassment or hostile workplace laws in the user’s local jurisdiction.

  7. Making fraudulent offers of products, items, or services originating from any LedGrafix account.

  8. Making statements about warranty, expressly or implied, unless it is a part of normal job duties.

  9. Effecting security breaches or disruptions of network communication. Security breaches include, but are not limited to, accessing data of which the employee is not an intended recipient or logging into a server or account that the employee is not expressly authorized to access, unless these duties are within the scope of regular duties. For purposes of this section, “disruption” includes, but is not limited to, network sniffing, pinged floods, packet spoofing, denial of service, and forged routing information for malicious purposes.

  10. Port scanning or security scanning is expressly prohibited unless prior notification to LedGrafix is made.

  11. Executing any form of network monitoring which will intercept data not intended for the employee’s host, unless this activity is a part of the employee’s normal job/duty.

  12. Circumventing user authentication or security of any host, network or account.

  13. Interfering with or denying service to any user other than the employee’s host (for example, denial of service attack).

  14. Using any program/script/command, or sending messages of any kind, with the intent to interfere with, or disable, a user’s terminal session, via any means, locally or via the Internet/Intranet/Extranet.

  15. Providing information about, or lists of, LedGrafix employees to parties outside .

Email and Communications Activities

  1. Sending unsolicited email messages, including the sending of “junk mail” or other advertising material to individuals who did not specifically request such material (email spam).

  2. Any form of harassment via email, telephone or paging, whether through language, frequency, or size of messages.

  3. Unauthorized use, or forging, of email header information.

  4. Solicitation of email for any other email address, other than that of the poster’s account, with the intent to harass or to collect replies.

  5. Creating or forwarding “chain letters”, “Ponzi” or other “pyramid” schemes of any type.

  6. Use of unsolicited email originating from within LedGrafix ‘s networks of other Internet/Intranet/Extranet service providers on behalf of, or to advertise, any service hosted by LedGrafix or connected via LedGrafix ‘s network.

  7. Posting the same or similar non-business-related messages to large numbers of Usenet newsgroups (newsgroup spam).

4.4. Blogging

  1. Blogging by employees, whether using LedGrafix’s property and systems or personal computer systems, is also subject to the terms and restrictions set forth in this Policy. Limited and occasional use of LedGrafix’s systems to engage in blogging is acceptable, provided that it is done in a professional and responsible manner, does not otherwise violate LedGrafix’s policy, is not detrimental to LedGrafix’s best interests, and does not interfere with an employee’s regular work duties. Blogging from LedGrafix’s systems is also subject to monitoring.

  2. LedGrafix’s Confidential Information policy also applies to blogging. As such, Employees are prohibited from revealing any LedGrafix confidential or proprietary information, trade secrets or any other material covered by LedGrafix’s Confidential Information policy when engaged in blogging.

  3. Employees shall not engage in any blogging that may harm or tarnish the image, reputation and/or goodwill of LedGrafix and/or any of its employees. Employees are also prohibited from making any discriminatory, disparaging, defamatory or harassing comments when blogging or otherwise engaging in any conduct prohibited by LedGrafix’s Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment policy.

  4. Employees may also not attribute personal statements, opinions or beliefs to LedGrafix when engaged in blogging. If an employee is expressing his or her beliefs and/or opinions in blogs, the employee may not, expressly or implicitly, represent themselves as an employee or representative of LedGrafix. Employees assume any and all risk associated with blogging.

  5. Apart from following all laws pertaining to the handling and disclosure of copyrighted or export controlled materials, LedGrafix’s trademarks, logos and any other LedGrafix intellectual property may also not be used in connection with any blogging activity

5.0 Enforcement

Any employee found to have violated this policy may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.

6.0 Definitions

Term Definition

Blogging Writing a blog. A blog (short for weblog) is a personal online journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption.

Spam Unauthorized and/or unsolicited electronic mass mailings.

7.0 Revision History

Initial Site Survey Guidelines August 9, 2008

Posted by timsteiner in Information Security.
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Initial Site Survey

  • Are passwords difficult to crack?
  • Are there access control lists (ACLs) in place on network devices to control who has access to shared data?
  • Are there audit logs to record who accesses data?
  • Are the audit logs reviewed?
  • Are the security settings for operating systems in accordance with accepted industry security practices?
  • Have all unnecessary applications and computer services been eliminated for each system?
  • Are these operating systems and commercial applications patched to current levels?
  • How is backup media stored? Who has access to it? Is it up-to-date?
  • Is there a disaster recovery plan? Have the participants and stakeholders ever rehearsed the disaster recovery plan?
  • Are there adequate cryptographic tools in place to govern data encryption, and have these tools been properly configured?
  • Have custom-built applications been written with security in mind?
  • How have these custom applications been tested for security flaws?
  • How are configuration and code changes documented at every level? How are these records reviewed and who conducts the review?

Pre-Audit Homework

Before the computer security auditors even begin an organizational audit, there’s a fair amount of homework that should be done. Auditors need to know what they’re auditing. In addition to reviewing the results of any previous audits that may have been conducted, there may be several tools they will use or refer to before. The first is a site survey. This is a technical description of the system’s hosts. It also includes management and user demographics. This information may be out of date, but it can still provide a general framework. Security questionnaires may be used as to follow up the site survey. These questionnaires are, by nature, subjective measurements, but they are useful because they provide a framework of agreed-upon security practices. The respondents are usually asked to rate the controls used to govern access to IT assets. These controls include: management controls, authentication/access controls, physical security, outsider access to systems, system administration controls and procedures, connections to external networks, remote access, incident response, and contingency planning.

Site surveys and security questionnaires should be clearly written with quantifiable responses of specific requirements. They should offer a numerical scale from least desired (does not meet requirements) to most desired (meets requirements and has supporting documentation). Both should include electronic commerce considerations if appropriate to the client organization. For instance, credit card companies have compliance templates listing specific security considerations for their products. These measure network, operating system, and application security as well as physical security.

Auditors, especially internal auditors, should review previous security incidents at the client organization to gain an idea of historical weak points in the organization’s security profile. It should also examine current conditions to ensure that repeat incidents cannot occur. If auditors are asked to examine a system that allows Internet connections, they may also want to know about IDS/Firewall log trends. Do these logs show any trends in attempts to exploit weaknesses? Could there be an underlying reason (such as faulty firewall rules) that such attempts are taking place on an ongoing basis. How can this be tested?

Because of the breadth of data to be examined, auditors will want to work with the client to determine the scope of the audit. Factors to consider include: the site business plan, the type of data being protected and the value/importance of that data to the client organization, previous security incidents, the time available to complete the audit and the talent/expertise of the auditors. Good auditors will want to have the scope of the audit clearly defined, understood and agreed to by the client.

Next, the auditors will develop audit plan. This plan will cover how will audit be executed, with which personnel, and using what tools. They will then discuss the plan with the requesting agency. Next they discuss the objective of the audit with site personnel along with some of the logistical details, such as the time of the audit, which site staff may be involved and how the audit will affect daily operations. Next, the auditors should ensure audit objectives are understood.

http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1697



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