Title:	Mobile and Remote Device Security, Information Technology
Policy Owner:	Information Technology Services / Chief Information Security Officer
Applies to:	All faculty, staff, student employees, and volunteers
Campus Applicability:	All campuses except UConn Health
Effective Date:	August 30, 2021
For More Information, Contact	UConn Information Security Office
Contact Information:	techsupport@uconn.edu or security@uconn.edu
Official Website:	https://security.uconn.edu/

PURPOSE 

To ensure data and information systems security by establishing requirements for mobile and remote devices.  Mobile and remote devices are important tools for the University, and their use is supported to advance the mission of the university. Mobile and remote devices also represent a significant risk to information and data security. If appropriate security measures and procedures are not applied, mobile and remote devices can serve as a conduit for unauthorized access to University data and IT resources that can subsequently lead to data leakage and a path for compromise of other systems. 

APPLIES TO 

This policy applies to all University faculty, staff, student employees, and volunteers who use mobile or remote devices to access any non-public IT resources owned or managed by the University. 

DEFINITIONS 

IT Resources: Includes systems and equipment, software, and networks. Systems and equipment include but are not limited to computers, hard drives, printers, scanners, video and audio recorders, cameras, photocopiers, and other related devices. Software includes but is not limited to computer software, including open-source and purchased software, and all cloud-based software, including infrastructure-based cloud computing and software as a service. Networks include but are not limited to all voice, video, and data systems, including both wired and wireless network access across the institution. 

Mobile Electronic Device: Includes telecommunication and portable computing devices which can execute programs or store data, including but not limited to laptops, tablet computers, smartphones, and external storage devices. Generally, a device capable of using the services provided by a public/private cellular, wireless, or satellite network. 

Remote Device: Personal computer used off-site 

POLICY STATEMENT  

University of Connecticut faculty, staff, student employees, and volunteers who use mobile or remote devices are responsible for any institutional data that is stored, processed, and/or transmitted via a mobile or remote device and for following the security requirements set forth in this policy. 

To adequately protect the data and information systems of the University, all individuals covered under this policy are expected to meet the following requirements: 

All users of a mobile electronic device used to access non-public university systems must take the following measures to secure the device: 

• Configure the device to require a password (minimum of 10 characters), biometric identifier, PIN (minimum of 6 characters), or swipe gesture (minimum of 6 swipes) to be entered before access to the device is granted. Device must automatically lock and require one of the authentication methods after no more than 5 minutes of idle time. 
• Keep devices on currently supported versions of the operating system and remain current with published patches. 
• Enable the device’s remote wipe feature to permit a lost or stolen device to be securely erased. 
• Securely store electronic devices at all times to minimize loss via theft or accidental misplacement. 

Wherever practical, elements of these requirements will be enforced via centrally administered technology controls.  

STORAGE OF CONFIDENTIAL DATA 

In general, confidential data should not be stored on mobile devices, including laptops. However, in certain instances and depending on job responsibilities, this may be unavoidable. In these instances, confidential data must be stored on university-owned devices ONLY with the following requirements: 

• Except when being actively used, confidential information must at all times be encrypted on any device through a mechanism approved by the University. Alternatively, whole drive encryption software may be deployed to meet this requirement. 
• Mobile devices must have university-supported software enabled and running to identify, protect, and respond to any threats to the data or operating systems of the devices. 
• Devices must have Mobile Device Management software installed to facilitate device protection, including remote wipe and, if possible, device location technology for recovery. 

DEVICE DECOMISSION OR SEPARATION FROM UNIVERSITY 

When mobile devices, specifically personally owned devices that may have had access to University resources or data, are no longer used, and donated, or given to anyone, the device owner is responsible for ensuring that any University information is securely deleted from the device, including University-related e-mails/accounts, user ID and password, or other cached credentials used to access University systems. 

In the event of separation from the University, it is the employee’s responsibility to delete any University-related e-mail accounts or University licensed software that may have been installed on personal devices or computers. 

ENFORCEMENT 

Violations of this policy may result in appropriate disciplinary measures in accordance with University By-Laws, General Rules of Conduct for All University Employees, applicable collective bargaining agreements, and the Student Code. 

Questions about this policy or suspected violations may be reported to any of the following: 

Office of University Compliance –  https://compliance.uconn.edu (860-486-2530) 

Information Technology Services Tech Support –  https://techsupport.uconn.edu (860-486-4357) 

Information Security Office – https://security.uconn.edu 

 

POLICY HISTORY 

Policy created:  August 30, 2021 [Approved by President’s Senior Team] 

Title:	System and Application Security Policy
Policy Owner:	Information Technology Services / Chief Information Security Officer
Applies to:	All students, faculty, and staff
Campus Applicability:	All campuses except UConn Health
Effective Date:	August 30, 2021
For More Information, Contact	UConn Information Security Office
Contact Information:	techsupport@uconn.edu or security@uconn.edu
Official Website:	https://security.uconn.edu/

PURPOSE 

To ensure the security of university data by establishing requirements for the proper maintenance and oversight of systems and applications used by university constituents. 

APPLIES TO 

This policy applies to all individuals responsible for operating or overseeing any University system or application, whether on premise or in the cloud. 

DEFINITIONS  

ITS: Information Technology Services 

SaaS: Cloud-based service that is delivered via the web based on either a monthly or annual subscription 

PaaS:  Cloud-based service that provides a platform allowing for the development of software using an established framework to improve development time and management of cloud services 

PII (Personally Identifiable Information):  Information that either singularly or in conjunction with other data elements could reasonably lead to the identification of specific individuals 

POLICY STATEMENT  

The proper maintenance and review of systems and applications is critical to protecting the data they store or process. While requirements may vary as to the administration and operation of any system or application, the following are required of any individual responsible for a system or application related to the University of Connecticut’s computing environment, whether on-premise or in the cloud. 

System Ownership 

All systems supporting any aspect of the University must have an identified owner and responsible party for ensuring the controls specified in this document. For a system that is fully cloud-based, a UConn faculty or staff member is responsible for overseeing that the following controls are appropriately applied and adhered to by the cloud provider.  

System and Application Security 

All software and services used to process University of Connecticut information are subject to an Information Security review and sign off prior to their purchase or development. Information Security reviews will evaluate specific risks and controls available and necessary based on the information being processed. The system owner will be responsible for the deployment of the agreed upon security controls prior to enabling the production capability of the system or application. 

Only necessary software should be loaded on systems, and old versions of software removed. The use of web browsers should be limited to the management of the system only. 

System Access 

Access to information in the possession of or under the control of the University of Connecticut must be provided on a need-to-know basis. Information must be disclosed only to individuals who have a legitimate and approved business need for information. Information may only be used for its intended purpose, and other uses of university information without the approval of the data owner is not allowed.  

Patching and Maintenance 

All individuals, including faculty, staff, or students, who have taken on or been assigned the responsibility of managing any system or application attached to the University of Connecticut network or any cloud system that holds a relationship to the University of Connecticut or holds University of Connecticut data, must ensure the timely implementation of operating systems and application patches to provide for the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of said systems or data. The ongoing maintenance of applications and the application of software updates is an activity that must be regularly scheduled on a minimum quarterly basis. ITS and many other parts of the University maintain systems to simplify the patching of operating systems. 

Cloud-based SaaS and PaaS systems typically remove the requirement for patching and maintenance, as the responsibility for this is handled by the vendor. 

User Management 

University of Connecticut Information Technology Services (ITS) provides centralized user identity and access management that supports identity validation and access management (IAM) using a NetID and password. Systems and applications that rely on the University IAM platform for authenticating individual access rights can forgo the need for user management outside that of assigning any roles within the system or application, as necessary. 

Systems and applications that do not use the central IAM solution must have a written plan and designated individual responsible for the creation, modification, and deletion of user IDs. User IDs, including student accounts, must be reviewed when faculty, staff, or students separate from the University at least annually. This includes a process for ensuring the secure creation of passwords and a secure password reset process for validating an individual’s identity prior to resetting the password. 

Systems where individuals have access to a significant amount of the PII of other constituents, including students, faculty, staff, alumni, and vendors, or significant amounts of regulated data should leverage multi-factor authentication wherever possible. 

Auditing of Systems and Application Logs 

System and application logs should be reviewed for inappropriate access on a regular basis (at least monthly) or via automated systems capable of detecting misuse through the analysis of frequent password failures, geographic anomalies, or inappropriate access attempts. ITS maintains a centralized logging and reporting platform, which can assist in the analysis of large amounts of data often associated with system and application logs. 

System and Application Lifecycle Management 

Any system or application that is no longer supported by the vendor or is replaced by newer technology should be decommissioned as soon as possible. The proper update of systems and applications is critical to protecting the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the system or application and its data. The decommissioning process must include the proper retirement of any physical hardware or virtual images and the proper destruction of any media (e.g., hard drives, tapes, etc.) that may have data. Cloud services that are decommissioned should ensure the proper handling of any data (return and/or destruction) in the cloud vendor’s possession as part of the contract cancellation. 

Protection of Regulated Data 

Certain classes of information stored within University of Connecticut systems and applications have additional regulatory requirements associated with their storage and/or transmission. This data includes but is not limited to: Personally Identifiable Information (PII), including certain combinations of data regarded as sensitive PII; Personal Health Information (PHI), Payment Card Industry (PCI) information, or any information subject to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).  The University must also comply with any additional protections of information or datasets contractually required by other agencies or organizations.  

Mandatory Reporting 

All suspected policy violations, system intrusions, and other conditions that might jeopardize University of Connecticut information or information systems must be immediately reported to the Information Security Office. 

ENFORCEMENT 

Systems and applications that do not follow the standards set forth in this policy may be administratively shut down or have access restricted to on-campus or individual personnel only. Systems maintained at the departmental or individual level may incur costs in association with enabling the proper protections or in the event of data exposure. 

Violations of this policy may result in appropriate disciplinary measures in accordance with University By-Laws, General Rules of Conduct for All University Employees, applicable collective bargaining agreements, and the Student Code.  

PROCEDURES/FORMS 

Questions about this policy or suspected violations may be reported to any of the following: 

Office of University Compliance –  https://compliance.uconn.edu (860-486-2530) 

Information Technology Services Tech Support –  https://techsupport.uconn.edu (860-486-4357) 

Information Security Office – https://security.uconn.edu 

 

POLICY HISTORY 

Policy created: August 30, 2021 [Approved by President’s Senior Team]

 

Title:	Firewall Policy
Policy Owner:	Information Technology Services / Chief Information Security Officer
Applies to:	All students, faculty, and staff responsible for configuring firewalls
Campus Applicability:	All campuses except UConn Health
Effective Date:	August 30, 2021
For More Information, Contact	UConn Information Security Office
Contact Information:	techsupport@uconn.edu or security@uconn.edu
Official Website:	https://security.uconn.edu/

PURPOSE 

To ensure a common set of firewall configurations across the organization to maximize their protection and detection capabilities in support of the security of the University. Firewalls provide a valuable protection and detection capability for the organization when properly configured, managed, and monitored.  

APPLIES TO 

This policy applies to all University faculty, staff, students, student employees, volunteers, and contractors who have responsibility for controlling or configuring firewalls. 

DEFINITIONS 

EOL: End of Life 

EOS: End of Support 

IANA: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (iana.org)  

POLICY STATEMENT  

The University operates in a highly flexible and adaptive security environment to meet its academic, research, and administrative missions. While the ability to adapt to meet the ever-changing needs of the University is important, oversight and reporting of firewall activities are critical to the successful protection and operation of the University environment. The following firewall requirements must be met: 

Firewall Configuration Standards 

• All firewalls must be properly maintained from a hardware and software perspective. This includes proper lifecycle planning for EOL and EOS software/hardware and regular review (at least annually) of firewall rulesets. 
• All dedicated firewalls used in production must follow the University firewall management standard, which includes the ability to review currently configured firewall rules across the organization, identification of shadow or redundant rules and rules in conflict, and standardization of device/object names.  
• Firewall rulesets and configurations must be backed up frequently to alternate storage (not on the same device). Multiple generations must be captured and retained in order to preserve the integrity of the data, should restoration be required. Access to rulesets, configurations and backup media must be restricted to those responsible for administration and review. 

Firewall Rules 

Firewall rules specify (either allow or deny) the flow of traffic through the firewall device. Firewall rules are typically written based on a source object (IP address/range, DNS Name, or group), destination object (IP address/range, DNS Name, or group), Port/Protocol and action. 

• All firewall implementations should adopt the principal of “least privilege” and deny all inbound traffic by default. The ruleset should be opened incrementally to only allow permissible traffic. 
• Outbound traffic should be enumerated for data stores, applications, or services 
• Overtly broad rules may be allowed for specific groups of individuals (not systems). Approval must be granted by the Chief Information Security Officer or their designee. 
• The use of overly permissive firewall rules is prohibited (i.e., ANY/ANY/ALL rules). 
• Protocols defined in services and in the firewall must utilize Service Name and Protocol/Port information as assigned by IANA, unless there is a technical reason to do otherwise other than “security through obscurity” and must be commented appropriately in the ruleset.  

Firewall Logging 

Firewall log integrity is paramount to understanding potential threats to the network. Firewall devices must log the following data to a system outside of the physical firewall itself and must be regularly reviewed at least monthly or programmatically through automated means. Firewall logs may be forwarded to the ISO SIEM for retention and analysis. 

The following items must be logged as part of the operation of the firewall: 

• All changes to firewall configuration parameters, enabled services, and permitted connectivity 
• Any suspicious activity that might be an indicator of either unauthorized usage or an attempt to compromise security measures 

ENFORCEMENT 

Violations of this policy may result in appropriate disciplinary measures in accordance with University By-Laws, General Rules of Conduct for All University Employees, applicable collective bargaining agreements, and the Student Code.  

Questions about this policy or suspected violations may be reported to any of the following: 

Office of University Compliance –  https://compliance.uconn.edu (860-486-2530) 

Information Technology Services Tech Support –  https://techsupport.uconn.edu (860-486-4357) 

Information Security Office – https://security.uconn.edu 

 

POLICY HISTORY 

Policy created: August 30, 2021 [Approved by President’s Senior Team]