On Thu, 2011-01-20 at 14:08 +0100, Giles Coochey wrote:
On 20/01/2011 13:12, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
On Thu, 2011-01-20 at 11:05 +0000, John Hodrien wrote:
An account is a personal account that should not be shared.
+1 Also, at least in the United States, locking a PC / workstation after 15 minutes of idle is a requirement of PCI/DSS - which your company almost certainly agreed to if you process credit card or other payment information. HIPPA, FERPA, and friends have similar requirements / strong-recommendations. Ask a competent lawyer and he'll/she'll tell you to lock unattended workstations. This has nothing to do with auditing the access to or usage of data - that is a separate issue
Yes, what you mention then becomes a legal compliance issue. Note, however, that many small companies completely outsource credit card payment by using third-party processing (e.g. Worldpay). This means they have no card data environment and don't need to comply with PCI/DSS in their offices. Even companies that do in-house card payment processing only have to enforce PCI/DSS in their CDE.
Correct; I'm just of the stick-to-as-much-of-the-strictest-requirements-in-as-much-of-the-network-as-possible school. It helps avoid debates and issues about where and where not a requirement applies [some of the clauses are pretty vague]. Call it CYA if you like.
While such standards are much-maligned I actually find them useful as a tool for pushing for better security against crowds that don't like password change requirements, etc... The standards speak a language "suits" understand and to some degree believe in [or at least fear, which works well enough].
I can't speak for HIPPA, SOX etc... but automatic locking is part of IT best practice.