INFOSEC Acceptable Use Policy

Here is one company's acceptable use policy. Notice that even though this is the most essential security policy you will write, this one is relatively short.

1.0 Overview

INFOSEC's intentions for publishing an Acceptable Use Policy are not to impose restrictions that are contrary to 's established culture of openness, trust, and integrity. INFOSEC 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 . 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 employee and affiliate who deals with information and/or information systems. It is the responsibility of all computers 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 . These rules are in place to protect the employee and . Inappropriate use exposes 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 , including all personnel affiliated with third parties. This policy applies to all equipment that is owned or leased by .

4.0 Policy

4.1 General Use and Ownership

Although '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 . Because of the need to protect 's network, management cannot guarantee the confidentiality of information stored on any network device belonging to .
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.
INFOSEC recommends that any information that users consider sensitive or vulnerable be encrypted. For guidelines on information classification, see INFOSEC's Information Sensitivity Policy. For guidelines on encrypting e-mail and documents, go to INFOSEC's Awareness Initiative.
For security and network maintenance purposes, authorized individuals within can monitor equipment, systems, and network traffic at any time, per INFOSEC's Audit Policy.
reserves the right to audit networks and systems on a periodic basis to ensure compliance with this policy.

4.2 Security and Proprietary Information

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, the 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.
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, and user-level passwords should be changed every six months.
All PCs, portable computers, and workstations should be secured with a password-protected screen saver with the automatic activation feature set at 10 minutes or less or by logging off (Ctrl+Alt+Del for Microsoft Windows 2000 users) when the host will be unattended.
Use encryption of information in compliance with INFOSEC's Acceptable Encryption Use Policy.
Because information contained on portable computers is especially vulnerable, special care should be exercised. Protect laptops in accordance with the "Laptop Security Tips."
Postings by employees from a e-mail address to newsgroups should contain a disclaimer stating that the opinions expressed are strictly the user's own and not necessarily those of , unless posting is in the course of business duties.
All hosts used by the employee that are connected to the Internet/intranet/extranet, whether owned by the employee or , shall be continually running approved virus-scanning software with a current virus database, unless overridden by departmental or group policy.
Employees must use extreme caution when opening e-mail attachments received from unknown senders; they can contain viruses, e-mail bombs, or Trojan horse code.

4.3 Unacceptable Use

The following activities are, in general, prohibited. Employees can be exempted from these restrictions during the course of their legitimate job responsibilities. (For example, systems administration staff might 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 authorized to engage in any activity that is illegal under local, state, federal, or international law while utilizing -owned resources.

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

System and Network Activities

The following activities are strictly prohibited with no exceptions:

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 , are prohibited.
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 or the end user does not have an active license is strictly prohibited.
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.
Introduction of malicious programs into the network or server (for example, viruses, worms, Trojan horses, e-mail bombs) is prohibited.
Revealing your account password to others or allowing use of your account by others is prohibited. This includes family and other household members when work is done at home.
Using a 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 is prohibited.
Making fraudulent offers of products, items, or services originating from any account is prohibited.
Making statements about warranty, expressly or implied, unless it is a part of normal job duties is prohibited.
Effecting security breaches or disruptions of network communication is prohibited. 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.
Port scanning or security scanning is expressly prohibited unless prior notification to INFOSEC is made.
Executing any form of network monitoring that will intercept data not intended for the employee's host, unless this activity is a part of the employee's normal job/duty, is prohibited.
Circumventing user authentication or security of any host, network, or account is prohibited.
Interfering with or denying service to any user other than the employee's host (for example, denial of service attack) is prohibited.
Using any program/script/command or sending messages of any kind with the intent to interfere with or disable a user's terminal session through any means, locally or by the Internet/intranet/extranet, is prohibited.
Providing information about, or lists of, employees to parties outside is prohibited.

E-mail and Communications Activities

Sending unsolicited e-mail messages, including the sending of "junk mail" or other advertising material, to individuals who did not specifically request such material (e-mail spam) is prohibited.
Any form of harassment by way of e-mail, telephone, or paging, whether through language, frequency, or size of messages, is prohibited.
Unauthorized use, or forging, of e-mail header information is prohibited.
Solicitation of e-mail for any other e-mail address, other than that of the poster's account, with the intent to harass or to collect replies is prohibited.
Creating or forwarding "chain letters," "Ponzi," or other "pyramid" schemes of any type is prohibited.
Use of unsolicited e-mail originating from within 's networks of other Internet/intranet/extranet service providers on behalf of, or to advertise, any service hosted by or connected by 's network is prohibited.
Posting the same or similar non-business-related messages to large numbers of Usenet newsgroups (newsgroup spam) is prohibited.

5.0 Enforcement

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

6.0 Definitions