Protecting Against Hoaxes Part II

As you learned in the previous installment of this article, educating users is one way you can reduce the threat of hoaxes. Another way, which would also cut the number of incidents that you have to respond to, is to ban user access to outside e-mail accounts from work. This is usually done via Web mail, Outlook Express, or even users who’ve loaded AOL software on their work computers. You’ll get a lot of complaints about a policy like this at first, but you should point out that this is akin to the normal ban on personal phone calls at work, except for emergencies or other urgent incidents.

If you decide on such a policy, you will also have to remind workers that their company e-mail account is not private, and they should never use it for any non-business purpose. Make sure they understand that it’s for business use only, and that their account may be routinely accessed by others in the company for legitimate reasons, such as when they are out sick or on vacation.

A policy banning access to personal e-mail accounts, complete with rigorously enforced sanctions against violators, will not only eliminate many of the threats from time-wasting hoax e-mails, but will also help mitigate a cause of real virus and worm infections: Employees opening infected attachments disguised as everything from lottery tips to nude photos of some actress or actor.

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