Group Owner Membership Management: Security Responsibilities

Group Owners must be vigilant on who they let into their private group area(s). Just because a person has a .gov, .mil, .state, .edu, etc. on the end of their email does NOT mean automatic access to your group.  Here are some simple rules before approving a person’s access to your group:   

• Assume anyone asking for access to your group is NOT authorized to gain access to the information.
• Don’t automatically approve membership based on their email (i.e. government or military email suffix)
• Don’t automatically approve membership based on their name (i.e. name sounds like he / she should be from this country or region)
• Closely review personal profile information.  Request more profile information to verify credentials
• Just because a person was authorized access into an APAN group, does NOT mean he is authorized for your group
• Unknown personnel requesting access to your group must be verified with follow up phone call AND email asking them why they want access to group
• Ask probing questions on why they want access to your group. Ask them IF they requested access
• Alert APAN help desk support if a person you don’t know is trying to gain access to two or more of your groups
• When in doubt about a person’s credentials (after email and talking to them), DON’T AUTHORIZE ACCESS to your group
• The APAN “reject” feature allows a request for additional information, if needed.  Follow up with phone call

Remember: As APAN Group owners you are responsible for your group membership. ALWAYS BE VIGILANT to protect your group membership.  You are the first line of security against unauthorized group access.