TRACOM Acceptable Use Policy (Revised 10/08/2020)
1.0 Overview
TRACOM’s intentions for publishing an Acceptable Use Policy are not to impose restrictions that are contrary to TRACOM’s established culture of integrity, openness, and trust. TRACOM is committed to protecting its employees, partners, and the company from damaging or illegal 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, electronic mail, WWW browsing, and FTP, are all the property of TRACOM. These systems are to be used for business purposes in serving the interests of the company, our clients, and customers.
Effective security is a team effort involving the participation and support of every TRACOM 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 usage of computer equipment at TRACOM. These rules are in place to protect the employee and TRACOM. Inappropriate use exposes TRACOM to risks including compromising network systems and services, virus attacks, and legal issues.
3.0 Scope
This policy applies to employees, contractors, consultants, temporaries, and other workers at TRACOM, including all personnel affiliated with third parties. This policy applies to all equipment that is owned or leased by TRACOM.
4.0 Policy
4.1 General Use and Ownership
1. While TRACOM’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 TRACOM. Because of the need to protect the TRACOM network, management cannot guarantee the confidentiality of user’s personal information stored on any network device belonging to TRACOM.
2. Employees are responsible for exercising good judgment regarding the reasonableness of personal use. Permission, in advance, should be received for any significant personal use that would drive incremental costs to the company, for example: long-distance telephone calls or personal use of printers.
3. TRACOM recommends that any personal information users consider sensitive or vulnerable be encrypted. For guidelines on information classification, see TRACOM’s Data Classification Policy. For guidelines on encrypting documents and email, go to TRACOM’s Encryption Policy.
4. For security and network maintenance purposes, authorized individuals within TRACOM may monitor equipment, systems and network traffic at any time.
5. TRACOM 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. Information contained on Internet/Intranet/Extranet-related systems should be considered confidential. 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.
3. All desktops, laptops and workstations should be secured with a password-protected screensaver with the timeout set to 15 minutes or less, or by logging-off when the host will be unattended.
4. Use encryption of information in compliance with TRACOM’s Encryption Policy.
5. Information contained on mobile devices is especially vulnerable, and special care should be exercised. See also the Mobile Device Policy.
6. Any postings by employees from a TRACOM email address to newsgroups should contain a disclaimer stating that the opinions expressed are strictly their own and not necessarily those of TRACOM, unless posting is in the course of the individual’s business duties.
7. All hosts used by the employee that are connected to the TRACOM Internet/Intranet/Extranet, whether owned by the employee or TRACOM, shall be continually executing approved virus-scanning software with an up-to-date virus database.
8. Employees must use extreme caution when opening e-mail attachments received from unknown senders, which may contain malware and/or viruses.
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 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 TRACOM authorized to engage in any activity that is illegal under local, state, federal or international law while utilizing TRACOM-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.
4.4 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 TRACOM.
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 TRACOM 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 account passwords 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 TRACOM 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 TRACOM 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 their regular duties. This 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 TRACOM is given.
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, a 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, TRACOM employees to parties outside TRACOM.
4.5 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 TRACOM’s networks of other Internet/Intranet/Extranet service providers on behalf of, or to advertise, any service hosted by TRACOM or connected via TRACOM’s network.
7. Posting the same or similar non-business-related messages to large numbers of Usenet newsgroups (newsgroup spam).
4.6 Blogging
1. Web logging (aka Blogging) by employees, whether using TRACOM’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 TRACOM’s systems to engage in blogging is acceptable, provided it is done in a professional and responsible manner, does not otherwise violate TRACOM’s policy, is not detrimental to TRACOM’s best interests, and does not interfere with an employee’s regular work duties.
2. Blogging from TRACOM’s systems is subject to monitoring without advanced notice.
3. TRACOM’s Confidential data policy also applies to blogging. As such, Employees are prohibited from revealing any TRACOM confidential or proprietary information, trade secrets or any other material covered by TRACOM’s Confidential data policy when engaged in blogging.
4. Employees shall not engage in blogging that may harm or tarnish the image, reputation and/or goodwill of TRACOM 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 TRACOM’s EEO Statement and Non-harassment Policy.
5. Employees may also not attribute personal statements, opinions or beliefs to TRACOM 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 TRACOM. Employees assume any and all risk associated with blogging.
6. TRACOM’s trademarks, logos and other TRACOM intellectual property may also not be used in connection with any blogging activity outside of an individual’s TRACOM job duties.
5.0 Enforcement
This policy will be enforced by the Information Security Committee, and/or Executive Team. Violations may result in disciplinary action, which may include suspension, restriction of access, or more severe penalties up to and including termination of employment. Where illegal activities or theft of company property (physical or intellectual) are suspected, the company may report such activities to the applicable authorities.
6.0 Revision History
Revision 1.0, 11-15-2019, Policy Created
Revision 2.0, 10-08-2020, Policy Revisions