How To Use A College Computer System Safely

Transcription

1 1.0 Overview Keuka College provides access to modern information technology in support of its mission to promote excellence and achievement across its mission areas of instruction, research, and service. We seek to protect the privilege of using the college s computing systems and software, including its internal and external data networks, for all members of the college community, by safeguarding the institution s information technology resources against harm and illegal actions. Consequently, it is important for users to behave in a responsible, ethical, and legal manner. Information Technology Services intentions for publishing an Acceptable Use Policy are not to impose restrictions that are contrary to Keuka College s established culture of openness, trust and integrity. Information Technology Services is committed to protecting Keuka College's employees, partners and the college 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 Keuka College. These systems are to be used in serving the interests of the college its students, faculty, staff, and community members in the course of normal operations. Effective security is a team effort involving the participation and support of every Keuka College 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 in an ethical, courteous, and legal manner. Keuka College reserves the right to add, delete or modify any provision of this Acceptable Use Policy at any time without notice, effective upon posting of the modified Policy on the college website. 2.0 Purpose The purpose of this policy is to outline the acceptable use of computer equipment at Keuka College. These rules are in place to protect the employees and students of Keuka College and to promote the ethical and appropriate use of Keuka s computing facilities and resources. Inappropriate use exposes Keuka College to risks including virus attacks, compromise of network systems and services, and legal issues. 3.0 Scope This policy applies to students, employees, contractors, consultants, temporaries, and other workers at Keuka College, including all personnel affiliated with third parties. This policy applies to all equipment that is owned or leased by Keuka College. 4.0 Policy 4.1 General Use and Ownership 1. The use of Keuka s resources is a privilege, not a right, and is granted under the conditions of appropriate usage as stated in this policy. While Keuka College s network administration respects legitimate privacy interests for students, faculty and staff, within appropriate limits for education for ethical and legal reasons, users should be aware that the data they create on the college systems remains the property of Keuka College. In exceptional circumstances, and to assist in troubleshooting and resolving system problems, Keuka reserves the right to search, inspect, and review any and all communications transmitted through the college s communications systems, including communications records of any kind the college stores with a third party storage vendor. 2. Faculty and staff are responsible for exercising good judgment regarding the reasonableness of personal use. If there is any uncertainty, employees should consult their supervisor or manager. 3. Information Technology Services recommends that any information that users consider sensitive or vulnerable be encrypted. Please consult with ITS as needed to determine appropriate encryption methods.

2 4. Students, faculty, staff are prohibited from revealing any Keuka College confidential or proprietary information, trade secrets, or any other material covered by Keuka College s Confidential Information Policy.. 5. While Keuka College'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 Keuka College. Because of the need to protect Keuka College's network, management cannot guarantee the confidentiality of information stored on any network device belonging to Keuka College. 6. For security and network maintenance purposes, authorized individuals within Keuka College may monitor equipment, systems and network traffic at any time. 7. Keuka College 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 college confidentiality guidelines, details of which can be found in Human Resources policies. Examples of confidential information include but are not limited to: college private or college strategies, competitor sensitive, trade secrets, specifications, employee and student information, and research data. Employees should take all necessary steps to prevent unauthorized access to this information. User Responsibilities 1. 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; user level passwords should be changed every six months. 2. All PCs, laptops and workstations should be secured with a password-protected screensaver with the automatic activation feature set at 10 minutes or less, or by logging-off (control-alt-delete for Win2K users) when the host will be unattended. 3. Use encryption of information in compliance with Information Technology Service's Acceptable Encryption Use policy. 4. Postings by employees from a Keuka College address to newsgroups should contain a disclaimer stating that the opinions expressed are strictly their own and not necessarily those of Keuka College, unless posting is in the course of duties. 5. All hosts used by the employee that are connected to the Keuka College Internet/Intranet/Extranet, whether owned by the employee or Keuka College, shall be continually executing approved virus-scanning software with a current virus database unless overridden by departmental or group policy. 6. Students, faculty or staff shall not engage in any activities that may harm or tarnish the image, reputation, and/or goodwill of Keuka College and/or any of its employees. Students, faculty, staff are also prohibited from making any discriminatory, disparaging, defamatory, or harassing comments or otherwise engaging in any conduct prohibited by Keuka College s Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment policy. 7. Students, faculty, staff may also not attribute personal statements, opinions, or beliefs to Keuka College. If a students, faculty or staff member is expressing his or her beliefs and/or opinions, they may not, expressly or implicitly, represent themselves as a representative of Keuka College. 8. Students, faculty and staff must use extreme caution when opening attachments received from unknown senders, which may contain viruses, bombs, or Trojan horse code Unacceptable Use The following activities are, in general, prohibited. Students, faculty and staff 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 Keuka College authorized to engage in any activity that is illegal under local, state, federal or international law while utilizing Keuka College-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.

3 System and Network Activities The following activities are strictly prohibited, with no exceptions: 1. Violations of the rights of any person or college 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 Keuka College. 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 Keuka College 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. Use of Keuka College computers or networks for any illegal purpose, including, but not limited to the use of computers or the network in violation of federal, state or local laws regarding such subjects as obscenity, pornography, child pornography, hate communications, discriminatory harassment, or criminal activity. 5. Introduction of malicious programs into the network or server (e.g., viruses, worms, Trojan horses, 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 Keuka College 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. 8. Making fraudulent offers of products, items, or services originating from any Keuka College account. 9. Making statements about warranty, expressly or implied, unless it is a part of normal job duties. 10. Using the network for commercial activity. 11. 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. 12. Port scanning or security scanning is expressly prohibited unless prior notification to Information Technology Services is made. 13. 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. 14. Circumventing user authentication or security of any host, network or account. 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, Keuka College employees to parties outside Keuka College. and Communications Activities 1. Sending unsolicited messages, including the sending of "junk mail" or other advertising material to individuals who did not specifically request such material ( spam). 2. Any form of harassment via , telephone or paging, whether through language, frequency, or size of messages. 3. Unauthorized use, or forging, of header information. 4. Solicitation of for any other 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.

4 6. Use of unsolicited originating from within Keuka College's networks of other Internet/Intranet/Extranet service providers on behalf of, or to advertise, any service hosted by Keuka College or connected via Keuka College's network. 7. Posting the same or similar non-business-related messages to large numbers of Usenet newsgroups (newsgroup spam). 5.0 Enforcement Any employee found to have violated this policy may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment. 6.0 Definitions Term Definition Bomb In Internet usage, an bomb is a form of net abuse consisting of sending huge volumes of e- mail to an address in an attempt to overflow the mailbox or overwhelm the server where the address is hosted in a denial-of-service attack. Encryption Extranet Internet Internet Junk mail Network Spam Trojan horse Encryption is the conversion of data into a form, called a ciphertext, that cannot be easily understood by unauthorized people. An extranet is a computer network that allows controlled access from the outside, for specific business or educational purposes. The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users. An intranet is a private network that is contained within an enterprise. Advertising of one sort or another that arrives in your postal mailbox along with the mail you really want or need. A computer network is a system in which computers are connected to share information and resources. Unauthorized and/or unsolicited electronic mass mailings. A Trojan horse, or Trojan, is malware that appears to perform a desirable function for the user prior to run or install but instead facilitates unauthorized access of the user's computer system.

5 Acceptable Encryption Policy 1.0 Purpose The purpose of this policy is to provide guidance that limits the use of encryption to those algorithms that have received substantial public review and have been proven to work effectively. Additionally, this policy provides direction to ensure that Federal regulations are followed, and legal authority is granted for the dissemination and use of encryption technologies outside of the United States. 2.0 Scope This policy applies to all Keuka College employees and affiliates. 3.0 Policy Proven, standard algorithms such as DES, Blowfish, RSA, RC5 and IDEA should be used as the basis for encryption technologies. These algorithms represent the actual cipher used for an approved application. For example, Network Associate's Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) uses a combination of IDEA and RSA or Diffie-Hellman, while Secure Socket Layer (SSL) uses RSA encryption. Symmetric cryptosystem key lengths must be at least 56 bits. Asymmetric crypto-system keys must be of a length that yields equivalent strength. Keuka College s key length requirements will be reviewed annually and upgraded as technology allows. The use of proprietary encryption algorithms is not allowed for any purpose, unless reviewed by qualified experts outside of the vendor in question and approved by Information Technology Services. Be aware that the export of encryption technologies is restricted by the U.S. Government. Residents of countries other than the United States should make themselves aware of the encryption technology laws of the country in which they reside. 4.0 Enforcement Any employee found to have violated this policy may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment. 5.0 Definitions Term Proprietary Encryption Definition An algorithm that has not been made public and/or has not withstood public scrutiny. The developer of the algorithm could be a vendor, an individual, or the government.

6 Symmetric Cryptosystem Asymmetric Cryptosystem A method of encryption in which the same key is used for both encryption and decryption of the data. A method of encryption in which two different keys are used: one for encrypting and one for decrypting the data (e.g., public-key encryption).