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Operational and Organizational Security: Policies and Disaster Recovery• Chapter 12 683

to ensure that users conduct themselves appropriately.Acceptable use policies
restrict users from making threatening, racist, sexist, or offensive comments. In
many cases, companies fortify this position by providing empathy training.
Acceptable use policies also restrict the types of Web sites or e-mail an
employee is allowed to access on the Internet.When employees access pornography
over the Internet, not only does it use up bandwidth and fill hard disk space on
non-work-related activities, but it also creates an uncomfortable work environment
for the other employees. Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other legislation,
a company can be liable for creating or allowing a hostile work environment. For
this reason, businesses commonly include sections in their acceptable use policies
that deal with these issues.

Damage & Defense… Work environments are considered hostile when the conduct of
Hostile Work Environments

employees, management, or non-employees becomes a hindrance to an
employee’s job performance. A hostile work environment may exist when
situations occur involving sexual harassment, discrimination, or other
events that offend someone in the workplace. In terms of computers and
the Internet, such situations may involve downloading and viewing
pornographic or other offensive materials on company computers. If
these materials are accessed through company computers and printed or
distributed in the workplace, the company can be sued for creating a hos-
tile work environment.
Additional problems may occur if the materials that are accessed,
printed, or distributed within the company are illegal. For example, it is
illegal to produce, possess, send, or receive child pornography. If
someone downloads such material, a crime has been committed. This
means the computer equipment could be subject to seizure and forfei-
ture since it was used in the commission of the crime.

Beyond dealing with potentially offensive materials, acceptable use policies also
deal with other online activities that can negatively impact network resources or
sidetrack users from their jobs. For example, a user who installs game software or
other technologies is often distracted from the duties they were hired to perform.
These distractions are activities the company did not intend to pay the user to per-
form. For this reason, restrictions on installing software and other technologies on
company computers can be found in acceptable use policies.
With many companies providing users with laptop computers, wireless hand-
held devices (such as Blackberry or Palm devices), cell phones, and other equip-

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