Guidelines for govt departments to plug information leaks

Mandatory security screening of personnel taken on outsourcing basis and avoiding doing confidential work on computers with net connection are among the guidelines issued to central government departments to plug information leak in the wake of corporate espionage case.
The guidelines which also said that external memory devices must not be connected to the USB drives on these computers and that misuse of photocopying machine should be prevented were issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
The MHA came out with the guidelines against the backdrop of the leak of classified information from some ministries including the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

"The ministries and departments will ensure that confidential work is not done on computers connected to the internet and it must to ensured that external memory device cannot be connected to the USB drives on these computers," the guidelines said.
All bureau heads have been asked to designate such computers on which confidential work will be done.
The guidelines have been circulated among all the Ministries on June 30.

The HRD Ministry along with several others, who have a sizeable number of staff recruited through outsourcing, has circulated the guidelines to all bureau heads, asking them to ensure that security screening of all such staff has been done.

Raising concerns over the misuse of photocopying machine, the guidelines said the officers of the sections concerned where the machines are installed must get the machine code locked.
"Counting devices in photocopying machines and other office equipment should be made good use of so that unauthorised copying is not done.
CCTV cameras can also be deployed judiciously," the guidelines said.