Acceptable Use Policy

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1. Overview

Infosec’s intentions for publishing an Acceptable Use Policy are not to impose restrictions contrary to eCuras’s established culture of openness, trust, and integrity. Infosec is committed to protecting eCuras'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 eCuras. These systems are to be used for business purposes in serving the company’s interests and our clients and customers in the course of normal operations. Please review Human Resources policies for further details.

Adequate security is a team effort involving the participation and support of every eCuras 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. Purpose

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

3. Scope

This policy applies to the use of information, electronic and computing devices, and network resources to conduct eCuras business or interact with internal networks and business systems, whether owned or leased by eCuras, the employee, or a third party. All employees, contractors, consultants, temporary, and other workers at eCuras  and its subsidiaries are responsible for exercising good judgment regarding appropriate use of information, electronic devices, and network resources in accordance with eCuras   policies and standards, and local laws and regulation. Exceptions to this policy are documented in section 5.2

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

4. Policy

4.1    General Use and Ownership

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

4.1.2        You have a responsibility to promptly report the theft, loss, or unauthorized disclosure of eCuras proprietary information.

4.1.3        You may access, use or share eCuras proprietary information only to the extent it is authorized and necessary to fulfill your assigned job duties.

4.1.4        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.

4.1.5        For security and network maintenance purposes, authorized individuals within eCuras may monitor equipment, systems, and network traffic at any time, per Infosec's Audit Policy.

4.1.6        eCuras reserves the right to audit networks and systems periodically to ensure compliance with this policy.

4.2    Security and Proprietary Information

4.2.1        All mobile and computing devices connected to the internal network must comply with the Minimum Access Policy.

4.2.2        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.

4.2.3        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.

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

4.2.5        Employees must use extreme caution when opening email attachments received from unknown senders, which may contain malware.

4.3    Unacceptable Use

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

Under no circumstances is an employee of eCuras authorized to engage in illegal activity under local, state, federal, or international law while utilizing eCuras-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.

4.3.1        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 eCuras.
  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 eCuras or the end-user does not have an active license is strictly prohibited.
  3. Accessing data, a server, or an account for any purpose other than conducting eCuras 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 before the export of any material that is in question.
  5. Introduction of malicious programs into the network or server (e.g., viruses, worms, Trojan horses, e-mail bombs, etc.).
  6. Revealing your account password to others or allowing the use of your account by others. This includes family and other household members when work is being done at home.
  7. Using a eCuras computing asset to actively procure or transmit material in violation of sexual harassment or hostile workplace laws in the user's local jurisdiction.
  8. Making fraudulent offers of products, items, or services originating from any eCuras account.
  9. Making statements about warranty, expressly or implied, unless it is a part of regular job duties.
  10. 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 this section’s purposes, "disruption" includes, but is not limited to, network sniffing, pinged floods, packet spoofing, denial of service, and forged routing information for malicious purposes.
  11. Port scanning or security scanning is expressly prohibited unless prior notification to Infosec is made.
  12. 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 regular job/duty.
  13. Circumventing user authentication or security of any host, network, or account.
  14. Introducing honeypots, honeynets, or similar technology on the eCuras network.
  15. Interfering with or denying service to any user other than the employee's host (for example, denial of service attack).
  16. 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.
  17. Providing information about, or lists of, eCuras employees to parties outside eCuras.

4.3.2        Email and Communication Activities

When using company resources to access and use the Internet, users must realize they represent the company. Whenever employees state an affiliation to the company, they must also clearly indicate that "the opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily those of the company.” Questions may be addressed to the IT Department

  1. Sending unsolicited email messages, including sending "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 eCuras's networks of other Internet/Intranet/Extranet service providers on behalf of, or to advertise, any service hosted by eCuras or connected via eCuras's network.
  7. Posting the same or similar non-business-related messages to large numbers of Usenet newsgroups (newsgroup spam).

4.3.3        Blogging and Social Media

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

2.      eCuras’s Confidential Information policy also applies to blogging. As such, Employees are prohibited from revealing any <Company> confidential or proprietary information, trade secrets, or any other material covered by <Company>’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 eCuras 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 eCuras’s Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment policy.

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

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

5. Policy Compliance

5.1    Compliance Measurement

The Infosec team will verify compliance with this policy through various methods, including but not limited to business tool reports, internal and external audits, and feedback to the policy owner.

5.2    Exceptions

The Infosec team must approve any exception to the policy in advance.

5.3    Non-Compliance

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

Revised: March 14th, 2018

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