Introduction
The Data Security Policy (DSP) provides definitive information on the prescribed measures used to establish and enforce the Information Security Program at UniGroup, C.A. (UniGroup).
UniGroup is committed to protecting its customers, members, employees, companies, and partners from damaging acts, whether intentional or unintentional. Security is a collaboration requiring the participation and support of everyone who interacts with data and information systems. Therefore, it is the responsibility of every user to know these policies and to conduct their activities in accordance with these policies.
Protecting UniGroup, member, client, and partner information and systems that collect, process, and store this information is critical. The security of data and information systems must include controls and safeguards to offset threats and reduce exposure to risk as well as ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data. Security measures must be taken to guard against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure or destruction of data and information systems; this includes accidental loss or destruction.
Purpose
The purpose of the DSP is to prescribe a comprehensive framework for:
UniGroup’s business operations.
Implementing consistent security controls across all systems processing UniGroup data, to include member locations and third-party supply chain partners, help UniGroup comply with current and future legal obligations to ensure long term due diligence in protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of UniGroup data.
Scope and Applicability
These policies, standards, and procedures apply to all UniGroup data, information systems, activities, and assets owned, leased, controlled, or used by UniGroup, its members, contractors, or other business partners on behalf of UniGroup. These policies, standards, and procedures apply to all UniGroup employees, contractors, sub-contractors, and their respective facilities supporting UniGroup business
operations, wherever UniGroup data is stored or processed, including any third-party contracted by UniGroup to handle, process, transmit, store, or dispose of UniGroup data.
All personnel supporting or processing UniGroup business functions shall comply with this DSP. UniGroup business units, partners, or members may create and use a more restrictive policy, but not one that is less restrictive, less comprehensive, or less compliant than this policy. This policy does not supersede any other applicable law, existing labor management agreement, or government regulation in effect as of the effective date of this policy.
Violations
Personnel supporting or processing UniGroup business that are found to have violated this DSP will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment and/or termination of association with UniGroup. Violators of local, state, Federal, and/or international law will be reported to the appropriate law enforcement agency for civil and/or criminal prosecution.
1.0 Information Security Program
UniGroup will maintain a privacy and information security program to ensure a level of security appropriate to the risk, nature, and scope of its activities, which protects against reasonably foreseeable forms of compromise. Such program will include reasonable and appropriate administrative, technical, and physical measures including a comprehensive set of policies, systems and services based on best practices to ensure: (1) the ongoing confidentiality, integrity, and availability of its data; (2) the resiliency of systems or services handling its data and the ability to restore such systems in a timely manner; (3) regular testing, assessment, and evaluation of the effectiveness of such measures; and (4) incorporation of any other policies and measures as needed to comply with applicable legal obligations.
Dedicated security, privacy, information governance, and compliance professionals will maintain the program with oversight provided by senior management. An independent, annual risk assessment reviews risks regularly and tracks risks using a process compliant with ISO 27005.
1.1 Management Commitment to Information Security
UniGroup management is committed to the protection of information assets. Management demonstrates its commitment to information security through its adherence to the following fundamental principles:
Management further demonstrates its commitment to information security by engaging in the following actions:
1.2 Organization of Information Security
The authority and responsibility for managing the information security program are delegated to
UniGroup’s Information Security Officer (ISO) who has responsibility for:
1.3 Information Security General Awareness and Training
Specific activities are undertaken to promote security awareness to all associates who have access to information and systems that are supporting UniGroup business. These activities are:
1.4 Identification of Information Security Controls
UniGroup uses the following sources for the identification of security requirements:
1.5 Assessments
The results of risk assessments, vulnerability assessments, and penetration tests assist in identifying threats to assets, vulnerabilities, their likelihood of occurrence, and potential estimated business impact. These assist in determining appropriate management action, priorities for managing risks, and implementation of controls selected to protect against these risks, vulnerabilities, and business impact. The following represents UniGroup’s approach to information security risk assessment:
1.6 Data Classification and Handling
Determining how to protect and handle data and information depends on the type of information, importance, and usage. Classification is necessary to understand which security practices and controls should be applied to the data to provide the appropriate level of protection. The more sensitive the data, the tighter the controls needed on that data. All data is classified as Public, Proprietary, Restricted, and Highly Restricted as defined in Appendix 1. Data should be handled according to its classification.
Special data handling procedures may be required for Restricted or Highly Restricted data; in addition, specific customer data may have additional handling instructions that UniGroup has agreed to
contractually. Prior to handling or processing data, users should ensure they understand the proper and/or required handling procedures and are following them appropriately.
1.7 Legal, Regulatory, and Contractual Compliance
UniGroup will ensure compliance with relevant statutory, regulatory, and contractual requirements affecting information security. The information security organization will work collaboratively with other UniGroup entities, including Legal, Risk Management, Human Resources, and Contracts to evaluate the applicability of UniGroup information security controls to new and existing legislation or regulatory requirements.
1.8 Audits and Reviews of Information Security Controls
Information security controls are periodically monitored, reviewed, and improved to ensure that the specific security and business objectives of UniGroup are met. Thus, information security conditions and policies of UniGroup are subject to annual internal and independent audits or reviews. Security audits or reviews are:
2.0 Access Control
Access controls are designed to reduce the risk of unauthorized access to UniGroup data and to preserve and protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of UniGroup systems. All assigned access shall be reviewed and audited for accuracy to ensure employees only have access to the data required for them to perform their assigned operational duties. Audits shall occur, at a minimum, annually; access to Restricted or Highly Restricted data shall be audited at a minimum quarterly.
2.1 User Access Management
The security administration team is responsible for ensuring proper user identification and authentication management by enforcing a formal, documented, provisioning and de-provisioning procedure as follows:
2.2 Least Privilege
The principle of “least privilege” access, which states only the minimum level of access will be granted to perform the assigned operational duties, shall be used when granting employees access to systems or data. Access shall not be granted without an approved business requirement and management approval. Access to Restricted or Highly Restricted data may also require an additional level of approval from the data owner.
2.3 Identification and Authorization
Each individual user is provided a unique user identity for the purpose of identification, authorization, and authentication to systems processing UniGroup data or supporting UniGroup business functions. This unique identity, associated credentials, and password is considered Highly Restricted information and should only be used by the individual it is assigned. Sharing of unique user identities, associated credentials, or password is strictly prohibited. In the event of a locked account, individuals are only permitted to request their unique account to be unlocked and the individual’s identity will be verified prior to the account being unlocked.
2.4 Password Management
Passwords are considered Highly Restricted information and therefore, should not be written down or stored in an unencrypted format. Passwords, password complexity, and password lifecycle should, at a minimum, adhere to current industry best practices. Forbidden actions related to passwords include, but are not limited to, the following:
3.0 Operational Security
Operational security processes are used to identify critical data and information, the vulnerabilities associated with them, and to determine the appropriate risk mitigations that are needed to ensure UniGroup operations are not negatively impacted.
3.1 System Hardening
System hardening procedures should be defined and followed for all systems and platforms (workstations, servers, databases, etc.), both production and development, to reduce the risk of systems being compromised. These procedures should be consistent with industry-accepted hardening standards and include, but not limited to:
In addition to the above hardening standards, the following steps shall be taken to further protect systems and reduce risk:
3.2 Patch Management
Routine installation of vendor-issued updates and patches (operating system, security, etc.) are necessary to protect systems and data from compromise and erroneous function. All systems (workstations, servers, network devices, firewalls, routers, mobile devices, etc.) will follow published patch schedules to routinely and regularly have patches installed. At a minimum, general patches should be installed quarterly while critical security patches should be applied as soon as possible. Proper testing of patches in a test environment, prior to release on production systems, is crucial to ensure interruptions to operations are not encountered.
3.3 Change Control
Change control processes are followed to maintain the integrity of production and non-production systems, to ensure that standardized methods are used for handling of all changes, and to minimize the impact of change related incidents. A defined and documented change management process should be followed that includes, at a minimum, the following:
3.4 Asset Management
UniGroup personnel, business partners, agents, and contractors shall protect assets associated with UniGroup operations by ensuring appropriate handling requirements are followed to prevent unauthorized disclosures, regardless of assets or data are being stored or transmitted. All assets associated with data or with data processing shall be inventoried and tracked. The inventory shall include, but not limited to:
3.5 Physical Security
A defined and documented physical security program and procedures shall be used to ensure the physical protection of all systems associated with UniGroup business. The physical security program shall include, but not limited to:
4.0 Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
Business Continuity (BC) and Disaster Recovery (DR) refers to responding to an operational interruption through the implementation of a recovery plan. The recovery plan accounts for applications deemed critical for business operations, service delivery, and ensures the timely restoration of UniGroup’s capability to deliver services. The BC/DR plan is tested, at minimum, annually to ensure the plan is up to date and capable of sustaining business operations during a crisis or period of disruption.
UniGroup, and those conducting UniGroup business shall:
5.0 Incident Response
Incident response refers to the actions taken to address an event that either creates service disruption or impacts a customer and incidents can range from minor to business crippling in scale. Incident response procedures should be periodically reviewed to ensure the defined steps are current and applicable to the existing environment. To have an effective response to an incident, there must be a defined, repeatable process that is followed. UniGroup addresses incident response by applying these main steps to all encountered incidents:
6.0 Software Development Life Cycle
A Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a series of steps that provides a framework for developing and managing software throughout its life cycle. When implemented correctly, an SDLC ensures that the highest quality software is delivered in the least amount of time, for the lowest overall cost. All development activities at UniGroup follow a defined SDLC which considers the following items:
During this process, attention is given to clearly identify the functional requirements, remedy the code of vulnerabilities and bugs, ensure it meets the stakeholder’s needs, and is safe to deploy into the production environment. The SDLC is followed for all feature enhancements, upgrades, etc. until the product is discontinued and removed from service.
7.0 Acceptable Use
Employees are granted access to UniGroup equipment, systems, and data to assist them in performing their job. The equipment, systems, and data belong to UniGroup, and use is intended only for legitimate business purposes in the fulfillment of services. Employees should not have an expectation of privacy in
anything they create, store, send, or receive on UniGroup systems or equipment. Without prior notice, UniGroup may review any material created, stored, sent, or received on its systems or equipment. All employees using UniGroup equipment, systems and/or data are obligated to use these items responsibly, professionally, ethically, and lawfully to process, protect, and secure UniGroup, members, employees, companies, partners, and its customers.
7.1 Equipment and System Usage
Users shall:
7.2 Record Retention
Information created, received, or maintained in the transaction of UniGroup business, whether in paper or electronic form, is considered a formal record and is subject to UniGroup’s Control of Record Procedure. This procedure defines the process for identification, storage, protection, retrieval, retention, hold, and disposition of records.
UniGroup will not keep personal information in a form that permits identification of data subjects for longer than necessary for the purposes for which it was collected or to which the data subject has consented, except for legitimate purposes permitted by law, such as regulatory compliance. All record disposals will follow UniGroup Derelict Media Collection and Destruction Process.
7.3 Remote Working
Associates identified as critical to business continuity will have the ability to work remotely. In addition, remote working may be a viable alternative work arrangement for some employees. In addition to the acceptable use policy, employees working remotely should take additional precautions to ensure the protection of data by properly securing, both logically and physically, all equipment, data, and communications as previously outlined in the DSP.
8.0 Special Topics
This section is reserved for additional topics.
8.1 Vendor Management
Vendors, third parties, and supply chain partners will be held to the same standards contained within UniGroup’s Data Security Policy, Privacy Policy, and Code of Conduct. Additionally, they may be required to meet customer contractual controls if/when processing customer data. Audits will be conducted on these parties as applicable to ensure compliance is met and the required protections are provided.
Relationships with vendors, third parties, and supply chain partners will be governed by mutually accepted contractual requirements.
8.2 Procurement
The procurement of new systems and software will follow a defined process to ensure an unbiased and comprehensive review of the offering is conducted prior to purchase. The review process will specifically include a data security review to ensure the offer has appropriate security controls and features. Annual reviews of systems and software will be performed to ensure continued adherence to UniGroup data security policies.
Appendix 1: Data Classification and Handling
All information assets are assigned a sensitivity level based on the data element’s level of sensitivity, value, and criticality to UniGroup, its customers, agents, contractors, or business partners. If the information has been previously classified by regulatory, legal, contractual, or company directive, then that classification will take precedence. The sensitivity level then guides the selection of protective measures to secure the information. All data elements are to be assigned one of the following four sensitivity levels:
HIGHLY RESTRICTED:
RESTRICTED:
PROPRIETARY:
PUBLIC: