System and Communications Protection Policy

Version 2.2

For Students, Faculty, Staff, Guests, Alumni

Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to demonstrate adherence to a Systems and Communication Protection program, ensuring security compliance with minimally acceptable requirements.

This IT policy, and all policies referenced herein, shall apply to all members of the University community, including faculty, students, administrative officials, staff, alumni, authorized guests, delegates, and independent contractors (the “User(s)” or “you”) who use, access, or otherwise employ, locally or remotely, the University’s IT Resources, whether individually controlled, shared, stand-alone, or networked.

Policy Statement

• Data Owners and Custodians must develop/adopt and adhere to a formal, documented process to ensure that, commensurate with risk, the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of IT Resources, both in storage and during transmission, are protected per the Data in Transit and Data at Rest policies.
• Data Owners and Custodians must protect the authenticity of communications sessions, per the Server Certificate Security Policy.
• The process must protect and monitor information transmitted or received by critical IT Resources and employ architectural designs, software, development techniques, and engineering principles that promote adequate information security per Information Technology Security Policy.
• Data Owners and Custodians must monitor, control, and protect communications (i.e., information transmitted or received by organizational systems) at the external boundaries and critical internal boundaries of Fordham University’s IT Resources per the Firewall/Network Access Control List Policy.
• Data Owners and Custodians must prevent unauthorized and unintended information transfer via shared IT Resources per Data Classification Policy and Guidelines.
• Data Owners and Custodians must prevent remote devices from simultaneously establishing non-remote connections with Fordham University’s IT Resources and communicating via some other connection to resources in external networks per IT Resources Remote Access Policy.
• Data Owners and Custodians must employ Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) validated cryptography to protect the confidentiality of information per the Disk Encryption Policy.
• As summarized in the Information Security and Risk Management Program document, mandatory security controls for IT Resources are University-wide controls required to be consistently designed, implemented, monitored, and assessed by Information Security and Assurance.
• Refer to the IT Policy Library for additional respective policies.

Definitions

Data Custodian is the individual to whom day-to-day actions have been assigned by the data owner and is responsible for the storage, maintenance, and protection of information.

Data Owner(s) are responsible for the information, security, and use of a particular set of information.

Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) are standards issued to establish requirements for various purposes, such as ensuring computer security and interoperability. They are intended for cases where suitable industry standards do not exist. Many FIPS specifications are modified versions of standards used in the technical communities, such as the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

IT Resources include computing, networking, communications, application, telecommunications systems, infrastructure, hardware, software, data, databases, personnel, procedures, physical facilities, cloud-based vendors, Software as a Service (SaaS) vendors, and related materials and services.

Related Policies and Procedures

• Data at Rest Policy
• Data Classification Guidelines
• Data Classification Policy
• Data in Transit Policy
• Firewall/Access Control List Policy
• Information Technology Security Policy
• IT Resources Remote Access Policy

Implementation Information

Revision History

Policy Disclaimer Statement

Deviations from policies, procedures, or guidelines published and approved by Information Security and Assurance (ISA) may only be done cooperatively between ISA and the requesting entity with sufficient time to allow for appropriate risk analysis, documentation, and possible presentation to authorized University representatives. Failure to adhere to ISA written policies may be met with University sanctions.