Security Policy

Introduction

This document is designed to help you understand Kika’s internal policies on data security, password protection and acceptable use. The purpose of this policy is to provide best practices for creating secure passwords and establish a standard process to safeguard Kika’s clients and internal credentials

Passwords are an important aspect of computer security. Passwords serve to protect user accounts; a poorly chosen password may result in unauthorized access and/or exploitation of our resources. 

This guideline applies to employees, contractors, consultants, temporary and other workers at Kika, including all personnel affiliated with third parties who have or are responsible for an account (or any form of access that supports or requires a password) on any system that resides at any Kika facility, has access to the Kika network, or stores any nonpublic Kika information.

This guideline also applies to all passwords used to access your personal accounts, including but not limited to user-level accounts (Slack), system-level accounts, web accounts, email accounts, screensaver protection, voicemail, and local router logins. 

Password Policy

1. Password Creation
     – All user-level and system-level passwords must conform to the Password Construction Guidelines.
     – Users must use a separate, unique password for each of their work related accounts. Users may not use any work-related passwords for their own, personal accounts.
     – User accounts that have system-level privileges granted through group memberships or programs must have a unique password from all other accounts held by that user to access system-level privileges. In addition, it is highly recommended that some form of multi-factor authentication is used for any privileged accounts
2. Password Change
     – Passwords should be changed only when there is reason to believe a password has been compromised. If you think your password may have been compromised, change it at once and then check your personal accounts for misuse. For workplace accounts, change your password at once, and then contact your company’s IT Security help desk at support@kika.ca. 
     – Password cracking or guessing may be performed on a periodic or random basis by the Kika Team or its delegates. If a password is guessed or cracked during one of these scans, the user will be required to change it to be in compliance with the Password Construction Guidelines.
3. Password Protection
     – Passwords must not be shared with anyone, including supervisors and coworkers. All passwords are to be treated as sensitive and confidential Kika information.
     – Passwords must not be inserted into email messages or other forms of electronic communication, nor revealed over the phone to anyone
     – Passwords may be stored only in the master Dashlane password manager account. Dashlane is the only password manager that is authorized by the organization. All of the required passwords you need will be shared to you depending on the user group you belong to: ( dashlane@kika.ca – Admins / team@kika.ca – Core Kika team / collective@kika.ca – Freelancers )
     – Do not use the “Remember Password” feature of applications (for example, web browsers). If possible, disable it by following this tutorial: https://support.dashlane.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000051065-How-to-turn-off-the-built-in-password-manager-in-your-browser
   – Any user suspecting that his/her password may have been compromised must report the incident and change all passwords.
     – Do not save personal credentials to the Dashlane account as this will store them into the shared database for use by the whole Kika Team. Dashlane is available for free for personal use, so you can create a separate account for this purpose.
4. Application Development
   Application developers must ensure that their programs contain the following security precautions:
     – Applications must support authentication of individual users, not groups.
     – Applications must not store passwords in clear text or in any easily reversible form.
     – Applications must not transmit passwords in clear text over the network.
     – Applications must provide for some sort of role management, such that one user can take over the functions of another without having to know the other’s password.
5. Multi-factor Authentication
   Multi-factor authentication is highly encouraged and should be used whenever possible,
   not only for work related accounts but personal accounts as well.

Acceptable Use

Our intentions for publishing an Acceptable Use Policy are not to impose restrictions that are contrary to Kika’s established culture of openness, trust, and integrity. We are committed to protecting Kika’s employees, partners, and the company from illegal or damaging actions by individuals, either knowingly or unknowingly.

Employees, contractors, consultants, temporary, and other workers at Kika and its subsidiaries are responsible for exercising good judgment regarding the appropriate use of information, electronic devices, and network resources in accordance with Kika policies and standards, and local laws and regulation. Exceptions to this policy are documented in the Unacceptable Use section. 

1. General Use And Ownership
   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 Kika. 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.
     – Kika proprietary information stored on electronic and computing devices whether owned or leased by Kika, the employee or a third party, remains the sole property of Kika. You must ensure through legal or technical means that proprietary information is protected in accordance with the Data Protection Standard
     – You have a responsibility to promptly report the theft, loss or unauthorized disclosure of
   Kika proprietary information.
     – You may access, use or share Kika proprietary information only to the extent it is authorized and necessary to fulfill your assigned job duties.
     – Employees are responsible for exercising good judgment regarding the reasonableness of personal use. If there is any uncertainty, employees should consult their supervisor or manager.
     – For security and network maintenance purposes, authorized individuals within Kika may monitor equipment, systems and network traffic at any time.
     – Kika reserves the right to audit networks and systems on a periodic basis to ensure compliance.
2.  Security and Proprietary Information
     – All mobile and computing devices that connect to the internal network must comply with the Minimum Access Policy.
     – System level and user level passwords must comply with the Password Policy. 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.
     – Employees must use extreme caution when opening email attachments received from unknown senders, which may contain malware.

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 Kika authorized to engage in any activity that is illegal under local, provincial, federal or international law while utilizing Kika’s proprietary resources.
The following activities are strictly prohibited, with no exceptions:
  – 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 Kika.
  – 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 Kika or the end user does not have an active license is strictly prohibited.
  – Accessing data, a server or an account for any purpose other than conducting Kika business, even if you have authorized access, is prohibited.
  – 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.
  – Introduction of malicious programs into the network or server (e.g., viruses, worms, Trojan horses, e-mail bombs, etc.).
  – 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.
  – Using a Kika 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.
  – Making fraudulent offers of products, items, or services originating from any Kika account.
  – Making statements about warranty, expressly or implied, unless it is a part of normal job duties.
  – 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.
  – Port scanning or security scanning is expressly prohibited unless prior notification to Kika is made.
  – 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.
  – Circumventing user authentication or security of any host, network or account.
  – Introducing honeypots, honeynets, or similar technology on the Kika network.
  – Interfering with or denying service to any user other than the employee’s host (for example, denial of service attack). 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.
– Providing information about, or lists of, Kika employees to parties outside Kika

Compliance

1. Compliance Measurement
   The Kika team will verify compliance to this policy through various methods, including but
   not limited to, periodic walkthroughs, video monitoring, business tool reports, internal and external
   audits, and feedback to the policy owner.
2. Exceptions
   Any exception to the policy must be approved by the Kika Management Team in advance.
3. Non-Compliance
   An employee found to have violated this policy may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.