EXCELLENT IT MEMO NR 2005-03-10/1 - Updated 20060125
INTERNET / IT / EMAIL
POLICY – ISSUED TO ALL CLIENTS.
The objective of this document is to specify the policy for how
Excellent IT’s clients should handle IT and email. It is important
that everyone adhere to the policies as emails are the main way
of communicating and they generate the personal and company image
to friends, clients and suppliers. Emails also are a possible security
& confidentiality threat. All clients are issued with this policy.
If there is something you do not understand in this document or
if anything is unclear, immediately contact Excellent IT to book
a training session.
Beware of email phishing.
Emails appearing to come from companies you trust may actually be
from criminals trying to steal your money or identity. Phishing
scams use 'spoofed' (faked or hoax) emails and Web sites to trick
you into providing your personal and financial information. So-called
'phishing' emails have quickly become one of the most devastating
scams on the Internet.
3.
When entering dates in the systems the
international standard format of YYYYMMDD I.E. 20041207 should be
adopted. This will ease sorting in date order.
4.
All emails sent should contain a disclaimer
and be spellchecked. Adequate business language (Dear Sir/Madam,
Truly Yours, etc) should be used when communicating with clients
and suppliers.
5.
In order to minimize loss of information
emails are the preferred way for internal communications. Post its
/ paper notes should be avoided.
6.
The are different email formats available
such as HTML, TXT amnd RTF. Some email viewers cannot read HTML
and will display the email as plain text and attach the background
as a file. Also some companies IT departments will quarantine HTML
emails and the recipient will actively have to call IT and ask them
to release it. In these 2 latter cases emails should be sent as
plain text by choosing Format -> Plain text.
7.
Internet email is VERY easy to intercept.
Never send an email containing anything you would not send in a
postcard or even post in a newspaper. Confidential information (contracts,
drawings, etc) should never be sent to an external email unencrypted.
8.
As a general rule all attachments should
be sent in PDF format. This will hinder editing of the files sent
and the viewing of document meta data. Please see : Dangers_of_Document_Metadata.
9.
Always utilizes state of the art Virusscan
software. If however you receive a suspicious email do not open
or preview it. Immediately shut down your PC and contact Excellent
IT. Some viruses spoof/fake the senders’ address, so newer
contact the sender of a virus even if you recognize the name. Contact
Excellent IT and the email will be traced to the real sender.
10.
To prevent viruses never install any
software on your PC without liaising with Excellent IT. Never click
on links such as: in emails as they might be harmful.
11.
It is recommended to use a web browser
other than Microsoft IE such as Firefox.
If you use IE, always have the security setting set to High. Any
websites using Active X can be added to the trusted zone, contact
Excellent IT if you need this.
12.
All Corporate emails are property of
the Company and may be viewed by others. Do not use the corporate
email for sensitive private/personal information.
13.
Do not use corporate email addresses
on websites or mailing lists (many websites collect email addresses
and sell them causing spam or virus infections).
14.
Always liaise with Excellent IT before
connecting any personal hardware devices such as phones and Ipods
to your PC. You are personally responsible for any material stored
being properly licensed. The use of file sharing / torrent software
might make your company liable to criminal prosecution.
15.
Email systems have size limits that
differ from 1 MB to 100MB. Attachments larger than 1MB should be
zipped/compressed. For stability and performance reasons it is advisable
to keep Outlook mailboxes to a maximum of around 300MB = 300.000
KB each. If you for convenience wish to keep many old emails you
should archive them to the local PC by when in outlook choosing
File -> Archive and choosing a folder locally (C:/) as the target.
Excellent IT will be happy to assist with this if needed. All important
/ business critical emails should be filed/archived and backed up.
16.
The statistics from from your website
can be downloaded daily and published on a server such as \\company\userfile\IT\website\report.htm.
It is recommended that personnel look at these stats once a week
to pick up on any potential clients who might have looked at the
site.
17.
It is recommended that mobile phones
should be set to one ring / beep when in the office in order not
to distract when they are left at the desk.
18.
Occasionally Excellent IT needs to reboot/do
maintenance on office PC’s. If the user is not at their desk,
and there are any open documents it is assumed that they have already
been saved, and no changes will be saved. It is aimed to schedule
server reboots outside office hours. Personnel are responsible for
any open documents being saved when they leave their desk.
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