Information security’s intentions for publishing an Acceptable Use Policy are not to impose restrictions that are contrary to (Organization)’s established culture of openness, trust and integrity. Information Security Department is committed to protecting (Organization)‘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 (Organization). These systems are to be used for business purposes in serving the interests of the (Organization), and of clients and customers in the course of normal operations. 

Effective security is a team effort involving the participation and support of every (Organization) 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.

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

This policy applies to the use of information, electronic and computing devices, and network resources to conduct (Organization) business or interact with internal networks and business systems, whether owned or leased by (Organization), the employee, or a third party.

(Organization) proprietary information saved on electronic and computing devices whether owned or leased by (Organization), the employee or a third party, remains the sole property of (Organization).  You must ensure through legal or technical means that proprietary information is protected in accordance with the Data Protection Standard.

You have a responsibility to report the theft, loss or unauthorized disclosure of (Organization) proprietary information.

You may access, use or share (Organization) proprietary information only to the extent it is authorized and necessary to fulfill your assigned job requirements.

Every Employee is 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.

For security and network maintenance purposes, authorized individuals within (Organization) may monitor equipment, systems and network traffic at any time, per Monitoring and Audit Policies.

(Organization) reserves the right to audit networks and systems periodically to ensure compliance with this policy.

The following activities are, in general, banned. 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 (Organization) authorized to engage in any activity that is illegal under local, state, local or international law while utilizing (Organization)-owned resources. 

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

All mobile and computing devices that connect to the internal network must comply with the Access control Policy.

System level and user level passwords must comply with the Password Policy. Providing access to another individual, either deliberately or through failure to secure its access, is prohibited.

All computing devices must be secured with a password-protected screensaver with the automatic activation feature set to 10 minutes or less. You must lock the screen or log off when the device is unattended. 

Postings by employees from a (Organization) email address to newsgroups should contain a disclaimer stating that the opinions expressed are strictly their own and not necessarily representing the (Organization)’s opinions, unless posting is in the course of business duties. 

Employees must use extreme caution when opening e-mail attachments received from unknown senders, which may contain malware.

The following activities are strictly banned, 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 software products that are not appropriately licensed for use by (Organization).
2. Unauthorized copying of copyrighted material including, but not limited to, digitization and distribution of photographs from magazines, books or other copyrighted sources, copyrighted multimedia material .. etc, and the installation of any copyrighted software for which (Organization) or the end user does not have an active license is strictly prohibited.  Accessing data, a server or an account for any purpose other than conducting (Organization) business, even if you have authorized access, is prohibited.
3. Accessing data, a server or an account for any purpose other than conducting (Organization) business, even if you have authorized access, is prohibited.
4. 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.
5. Using the (Organization)‘s computing asset to actively engage in procuring or transmitting material that is in violation of any harassment or hostile workplace laws in the user’s local jurisdiction.
6. Making fraudulent offers of products, items, or services originating from any (Organization) account.
7. Making statements about warranty, expressly or implied, unless it is a part of normal job duties.
8. 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.
9. Port scanning or security scanning is expressly prohibited unless prior notification to Information Security Department is made.
10. 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.
11. Circumventing user authentication or security of any host, network or account.
12. Introducing honeypots, honeynets, or similar technology on the (Organization) network with no permission.
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, by any means, locally or via the Internet/Intranet/Extranet.
15. Providing information about, or lists of, (Organization) employees to parties outside (Organization).
16. Files containing sensitive (Organization) data, as defined by existing Data Classification and Data Security Policy, which are transferred in any way across the Internet should be encrypted.

Email is essential to the everyday jobs. (Organization) want to ensure that the employees understand the limitations of using their corporate email accounts. The Acceptable use of email helps employees use their company email addresses appropriately, as defined in the e-mail usage policy.

Blogging by employees, whether using (Organization)’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 (Organization)’s systems to engage in blogging is acceptable, provided that it is done in a professional and responsible manner, does not otherwise violate (Organization)’s policy, is not detrimental to (Organization)’s best interests, and does not interfere with an employee’s regular work duties. Blogging from (Organization)’s systems is also subject to monitoring.

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

Employees shall not engage in any blogging that may harm or tarnish the image, reputation and/or goodwill of (Organization) and/or any of its employees. Employees are also prohibited from making any discriminatory, disparaging, defamatory or harassing comments when blogging.

Employees may also not attribute personal statements, opinions or beliefs to (Organization) 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 (Organization). Employees assume any and all risk associated with blogging.

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