Information Security Acceptable Use Policy

1 Overview 

The Development Manager (TDM) ’s intentions for publishing an Acceptable Use Policy are not to impose restrictions that are contrary to TDM’s established culture of openness, trust and integrity. TDM is committed to protecting its team members, 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 TDM. 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. Effective security is a team effort involving the participation and support of every TDM employee and stakeholder 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 TDM. These rules are in place to protect the employee and TDM assets which include confidential data handled by the Company. Inappropriate use exposes TDM 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 TDM business or interact with internal networks and business systems, whether owned or leased by TDM, the employee, or a third party. 

All employees, contractors, consultants, temporary, and other workers at TDM and its subsidiaries are responsible for exercising good judgment regarding appropriate use of information, electronic devices, and network resources in accordance with TDM policies, procedures and local laws and regulation. Exceptions to this policy are documented in section “Policy Compliance” 

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

4 Policy 

4.1 General Use and Ownership 

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

• You have a responsibility to promptly report the theft, loss or unauthorised disclosure of TDM proprietary and/or confidential information. 

• You may access, use or share TDM’s proprietary and/or confidential information only to the extent it is authorised and necessary to fulfill your assigned job duties. 

• 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 any case, employees should be guided by TDM’s policies on use of equipment and data protection, such as Data protection policy, computers and electronic communications policy, confidentiality policy, etc. If there is any uncertainty, employees should consult their supervisor or manager. 

• For security and network maintenance purposes, authorised individuals within TDM may monitor equipment, systems and network traffic at any time, per TDM’s monitoring policy. 

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

4.2 Security and Proprietary Information 

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

• System level and user level passwords must comply with the password guidance given by management team and the TDM systems team leader. 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 TDM email address to newsgroups must comply with General Data Protection Regulations and should contain a disclaimer stating that the opinions expressed are strictly their own and not necessarily those of TDM unless posting is in the course of business duties and when authorised by line manager. 

• Employees must use extreme caution when opening e-mail attachments received from unknown senders, or from known senders where the email communication is deemed to be suspicious, as this may contain malware. 

• When employees are connecting to an unknown network with their TDM devices or to look at TDM systems, they must ensure it is safe to do so and that the security of the systems remain safe and secure. 

• If employees are ever asked to logging into new systems and enter passwords etc, this must be done just with the right trusted people and if in doubt should seek clearance from managers. Do not act on an assumption. 

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 TDM authorized to engage in any activity that is illegal under local, national or international law while utilizing TDM 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 TDM. 

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 TDM or the end user does not have an active license or purchase receipt is strictly prohibited. 

3. Accessing data, a server or an account for any purpose other than conducting TDM business, even if employee has authorised access, is prohibited. 

4. Exporting software, technical information, encryption software or technology, in violation of national, 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. 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 use of your account by others. This includes family and other household members when work is being done at home. 

7. Using a TDM computing asset to actively engage in procuring or transmitting material that is in violation of sexual harassment or hostile workplace laws. 

8. Making fraudulent offers of products, items, or services originating from any TDM account. 

9. Making statements about warranty, expressly or implied, unless it is a part of normal 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 authorised 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. 

11. Port scanning or security scanning is expressly prohibited unless prior notification to TDM Directors 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 normal job/duty. 

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

14. Introducing honeypots, honeynets, or similar technology on the TDM network, unless this activity is a part of the employee’s normal job/duty and this has been expressly authorized by TDM Directors. 

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, via any means, locally or via the Internet/Intranet/Extranet. 

17. Providing information about, or lists of, TDM employees to parties outside TDM. 

• 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. Employees must not do the following: 

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. Sending unsolicited email messages or email campaigns without checking if the individualsor group of individuals being contacted have given their express consent to be contacted for direct marketing purposes. 

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

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

5. 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. 

6. Creating or forwarding “chain letters”, “ponzi” or other “pyramid” schemes of any type. 

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

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

• Blogging and Social Media 

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

2. If employees are going to use social media they must have authorisation to do so and must comply with data protection policy, procedures and legislation. This includes social media such as: facebook, twitter, blogging, youtube (list is not exhaustive) 

3. The use of company systems for social media must be just for the sole purposes of promoting the business and in accordance with the data protection regulations. 

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

5. Employees shall not engage in any blogging that may harm or tarnish the image, reputation and/or goodwill of TDM 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 TDM’s Safeguarding Policy. 

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

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

5 Policy Compliance 

5.1 Compliance Measurement 

The information security team is formed by TDM senior managers and directors. This team will verify compliance to this policy through various methods, including but not limited to, business tool reports, internal and external audits. 

5.2 Exceptions 

Any exception to the policy must be approved by the directors 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. 

6 Related Standards, Policies and Processes 

• Confidentiality Policy 

• Clear Desk and Screen Policy 

• Confidentiality Policy 

• Computers and electronic communications policy 

• Data Protection Policy 

• Document Retention Policy 

• Secure Hosting Policy 

• Storing and transferring work data policy 

• Mobile Policy 

• Mobile Computing Devices Policy 

• Monitoring Policy 

Also see TDM Privacy Policy. 

Issue Number: 1 Issue Date: 20/09/16 Revision Number: 2 Revision Date: 01/05/18