The policy should also provide users with a basic understanding of how viruses spread and how they can help prevent virus attacks. To help you create such policy for your organisation, TechRepublic has produced a virus protection policy download template.
Nothing is foolproof, but a policy can help designate the fool
You can't force people to read or heed a policy. One thing a policy can do, however, is put users on notice that they are also responsible for network security.
Granted, such a policy doesn't absolve the IT department from its duty to protect the network. But the IT department doesn't deserve all the blame when the same user opens an I LOVE YOU message for the 10th time.
Use our policy template as a starting point to develop a policy that fits your organisation. Your procedures for dealing with virus attacks will depend greatly on the antivirus software you use and your organisation's general philosophies on end-user responsibilities.
Take, for example, the process described by Mark Rushing. When his users get a suspicious e-mail, they are supposed to call him before doing anything to it, even deleting it.
Rushing also describes how he sends random anonymous e-mails to his users to test whether they are following his virus procedures.
Educate, illustrate, and enlist
One of the most effective ways to enlist end-user support is to give them appropriate information and show them what the IT department is doing to help reduce their risk.
Enlisting the user's help has the advantage of involving the user in the organisation's security at a basic level. Some IT pros may even be able to show users that changing their e-mail behavior at work may carry over into their personal computer usage at home and save them some grief.
The example policy we provide in our download is an attempt to:
- Educate users about how viruses work and spread.
- Show users what the organisation is doing to prevent virus attacks.
- Tell users how to respond and report suspicious files and attachments.
Download our virus prevention policy template
You can download our sample virus prevention policy by following this link.
Our virus prevention policy download is available both as a Microsoft Word document and an Adobe PDF file. To increase download speed, we have zipped these two files together into one file. You will need an unzip utility such as WinZip or PKZIP to expand the zipped file. You will also need either Microsoft Word or the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view each respective document. You can download the Adobe Acrobat Reader from both Adobe's Web site or Download.com.
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