Security policies in legal proceedings

Security policies in legal proceedings

I am in the process of finalizing a security policy for my company. I have a question about use of the policy for legal proceedings. Have you ever seen or heard of a legal case where the security policy was used as support for the company in a case where an employee went against the policy? Do you have references of these?

    Requires Free Membership to View

    SearchSecurity.com members gain immediate and unlimited access to breaking industry news, virus alerts, new hacker threats, highly focused security newsletters, and more -- all at no cost. Join me on SearchSecurity.com today!

    Michael S. Mimoso, Editorial Director

    By submitting your registration information to SearchSecurity.com you agree to receive email communications from TechTarget and TechTarget partners. We encourage you to read our Privacy Policy which contains important disclosures about how we collect and use your registration and other information. If you reside outside of the United States, by submitting this registration information you consent to having your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States. Your use of SearchSecurity.com is governed by our Terms of Use. You may contact us at webmaster@TechTarget.com.

One of the main purposes of a security policy is to clearly define the company's expectations so you do have legal recourse when an employee goes against the policy. You do need to show that the policies were effectively communicated to the end user and they were aware of the policy they disobeyed, or at least claim to have known (such as signing a document that they have read and understood the company's security policy). As for reference cases, the E-Policy Handbook by Michael Overly contains some excellent examples.


For more information on this topic, visit these other SearchSecurity.com resources:
Security Policies Tip: Creating an information security policy
News & Analysis: Dos and don'ts for policing user policies
Best Web Links: Security Policies and Infrastructure


This was first published in November 2002