IT Policy
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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) POLICY
(i) Password Policy
All users are responsible for keeping their passwords secure and confidential. The password credentials of the users must comply with the password parameters (“Complexity Requirements”) and standards laid down in this IT Policy as below:
A strong password must be at least 8 (Eight) characters long.
It should not contain any of the user’s personal information specifically his/her real name, user name or even company name.
It must be very unique from the passwords used previously by the users.
It should not contain any word spelled completely.
It should contain characters from the four primary categories i.e. uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers and characters.
To ensure that a compromised password is not misused on a long-term basis, users are encouraged to change the password every 90 (Ninety) days.
Passwords must not be stored in readable form in computers without access control systems or in other locations where unauthorized persons might discover them. Passwords must not be written down and left in a place where unauthorized persons might discover them.
Immediately upon assignment of the initial password and in case of password “reset” situations, the password must be immediately changed by the user to ensure confidentiality of all information.
Under no circumstances, the users shall use another user’s account or password without proper authorization.
Under no circumstances, should the user share his/her password(s) with other user(s), unless said user has obtained from the concerned branch manager/IT head the necessary approvals in this regard. In cases where the password(s) is shared in accordance with the above, the user shall be responsible for changing the said password(s) immediately upon the completion of the task for which the password was shared.
Passwords must not be shared with or made available to anyone in any manner that is not consistent with this IT Policy.
(ii) Access Controls
Access to the EDC’s electronic information and information systems, and the facilities where they are housed, is a privilege that may be monitored and revoked without notification. Additionally, all access is governed by law and policies of EDC including but not limited to requirements laid down in this policy.
Persons or entities with access to the EDC’s electronic information and information systems are accountable for all activities associated with their user credentials. They are responsible to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information collected, processed, transmitted, stored or transmitted by EDC, irrespective of the medium on which the information resides.
System and application sessions must automatically lock after 10 (Ten) minutes of inactivity.
Access must be granted on the basis of least privilege – only to resources required by the current role and responsibilities of the person.
Remote access to EDC systems and applications must use a two-factor authentication where possible.
Users must use unique ID to access systems & applications.
Alternative authentication mechanisms that do not rely on a unique ID and password must be formally approved.
(i) Information Security:
EDC has an information security Policy with the following principles:
Digital Signatures – A Digital signature certificate authenticates entity’s identity electronically. EDC protects the authenticity and integrity of important electronic documents and also for high value fund transfer.
Regulatory Returns – EDC has adequate system and formats to file regulatory returns to the RBI on a periodic basis. Filing of regulatory returns is managed and verified by the authorized representatives of EDC.
Identification & classification of information assets: EDC maintains detailed inventory of information asset with distinct and clear identification of the asset.
Functions: The information security function is adequately resourced in terms of the number of staff, level of skill and tools or techniques like risk assessment, security architecture, vulnerability assessment, forensic assessment, etc. Further, there is a clear segregation of responsibilities relating to system administration, database administration and transaction processing.
Role based access control – Access to information is based on well-defined user roles (system administrator, user manager, application owner). EDC has a clear delegation of authority to upgrade/change user profiles and permissions and also key business parameters.
Personnel Security – A few authorized application owners/users may have intimate knowledge of financial institution processes and they pose potential threat to systems and data. EDC has a process of appropriate checks and balances to avoid any such threat to its systems and data. Personnel with privileged access like system administrator, cyber security personnel, etc are subject to rigorous background check and screening.
Physical Security – The confidentiality, integrity and availability of information can be impaired through physical access and damage or destruction to physical components. EDC has created a secured environment for physical security of information assets such as secure location of critical data, restricted access to sensitive areas like data centers, etc. and has further obtained adequate insurance to safeguard such data.
Maker-checker – Maker checker is one of the important principles of authorization in the information systems of financial entities. It means that for each transaction, there are at least two individuals necessary for its completion as this will reduce the risk of error and will ensure reliability of information. EDC ensures that it complies with this requirement to carry out all its business operations.
Audit Trails – EDC ensures that audit trails exist for IT assets satisfying its business requirements including regulatory and legal requirements, facilitating audit, serving as forensic evidence when required and assisting in dispute resolution. If an employee, for instance, attempts to access an unauthorized section, this improper activity is recorded in the audit trail.
Mobile Financial Services – EDC has a mechanism for safeguarding information assets that are used by mobile applications to provide services to customers. The technology used by EDC for mobile services ensures confidentiality, integrity, authenticity and provides for end-to-end encryption.
Social Media Risks – EDC uses social media to market their products and is well equipped in handling social media risks and threats in order to avoid any account takeover or malware distribution. EDC further ensures proper controls such as encryption and secure connections to mitigate such risks.
(ii) Cyber Security
EDC realizes that managing cyber risk requires the commitment of the entire organization to create a cyber-safe environment. This requires a high level of awareness among staff at all levels. EDC ensures that the top management and the Board have a fair degree of awareness of the fine nuances of the threats. Further, it also proactively promotes, among their customers, vendors, service providers and other relevant stakeholders an understanding of their cyber resilience objectives, and ensures appropriate action to support their synchronized implementation and testing.
EDC takes effective measures to prevent cyber-attacks and to promptly detect any cyber intrusions to respond / recover / contain the fall out. Among other things EDC takes necessary preventive and corrective measures in addressing various types of cyber threats which includes denial of service, distributed denial of services (DDoS), ransom-ware / crypto ware, destructive malware, business email frauds including spam, email phishing, spear phishing, whaling, vishing frauds, drive-by downloads, browser gateway fraud, ghost administrator exploits, identity frauds, memory update frauds and password related frauds.
(iii) Confidentiality
EDC ensures that the service provider isolates and clearly identifies EDC’s customer information, documents, records and assets to protect the confidentiality of the information. EDC has strong safeguards in place so that there is no comingling of information / documents, records and assets.
Access to customer information by employees of the service provider to EDC is on ‘need to know’ basis i.e., limited to those areas where the information is required in order to perform the outsourced function.
EDC ensures that it immediately notifies RBI in the event of any breach of security and leakage of confidential customer related information.
EDC along with preservation and protection of the security (as set out in detail above), ensures confidentiality of customer information in the custody or possession of the service provider.
All these plans are tested by EDC on a regular basis. The results along with the gap analysis if any should be regularly placed by the CIO before the Board.
EDC should have BCP Policy duly approved by the Board. The functioning of BCP shall be monitored by the Board by way of periodic reports.
BCP forms a significant part of any organization’s overall Business Continuity Management plan which includes policies, standards and procedures to ensure continuity, resumption and recovery of critical business processes. BCP at EDC is also designed to minimize the operational, financial, legal, reputational and other material consequences arising from a disaster.
EDC requires its service providers to develop and establish a robust policy for documenting, maintaining and testing business continuity and recovery procedures. EDC ensures that the service provider periodically tests the Business Continuity and Recovery Plan and occasionally conducts joint testing and recovery exercises with its service provider.
In order to mitigate the risk of unexpected termination of the outsourcing agreements or liquidation of the service providers, EDC retains an appropriate level of control over their outsourcing and the right to intervene with appropriate measures to continue its business operations in such cases without incurring prohibitive
expenses and without any break in the operations of EDC and its services to the customers.
EDC ensures that service providers are able to isolate EDC’s information, documents and records and other assets. In appropriate situations, EDC can remove all its assets, documents, records of transactions and information given to the service provider from the possession of the service provider in order to continue its business operations, or delete, destroy or render the same unusable.
The CIO is responsible for formulation, review and monitoring of BCP to ensure continued effectiveness including identifying critical business verticals, locations and shared resources to prepare a detailed business impact analysis.
After the vulnerabilities and inter relationships between various systems, departments and business processes are identified, there should be a recovery strategy available with the CIO to minimize losses in case of a disaster. EDC also has the option of alternate service providers and would be able to bring the outsourced activity back in-house in case of an emergency.
EDC should identify necessary backup sites for their critical business systems and Data centers.
EDC has to identify a remote backup site for storage of critical data.
In order to prevent loss of information by destruction of the magnetic means in which it is stored, a periodic backup procedure is carried out. The responsibility of backing up the information located in shared access servers is the work of network administrators.
Restoration testing on a time to time basis is done as both hard disks and magnetic tapes are prone to errors. As a general rule, daily full backup happens for all critical business applications and a complete weekly full backup is carried out including file servers/old data kept on servers.