PHIL 355E

Cybersecurity Ethics

This course examines ethical issues relevant to ethics for cybersecurity professionals, including privacy, professional code of conduct, practical conflicts between engineering ethics and business practices, individual and corporate social responsibility, ethical hacking, information warfare, and cyberwarfare. Students will gain a broad understanding of central issues in cyberethics and the ways that fundamental ethical theories relate to these core issues.

Course Material

          The first topic I want to discuss and reflect on is cyber conflicts. In this module, we learned about the story of Stuxnet. Which was a complex malware that infiltrated the Iranian nuclear industry and destroyed centrifuges. We also learned about the justifications of cyber warfare and how our definition of just warfare is not enough to cover technological warfare because it is just a different type of monster. This section was interesting to me because growing up my knowledge of cyber-attacks was limited to just DDoS attacks and small attacks I would read on the news. But now they have become a major source of destruction and truly the scary part of it all is that most of the time it’s just untraceable. I’ve always known that cyber security would be an important part of society because with the advancement of technology there must be people put in place to work on the security side of it all. This module confirmed that thought and has inspired me to continue building my knowledge of cyber security. 

          The second topic I want to talk about is Ubuntu. Before this class, my knowledge of Ubuntu was limited to the software which is used to code. The module taught me that Ubuntu is much more than that it is a virtue and a way of looking at life. The idea that a person is only a person through its persons is truly magnificent. It got me thinking about situations in our everyday life to which this virtue applies. The first thing I thought about is a protest in which a bunch of strangers are brought together to protest for this certain idea. Although these people may have nothing else in common the idea which brought them together is strong enough to stand together in protest. Another example I’ve seen firsthand is ODU’s feign exchange student program in which I was lucky enough to come across some of the students and have a conversation. In this conversation, they talked about the struggles in their countries and how the US was different.  At that moment I was happy that they were here and that I was lucky enough to be here myself. This experience made me understand that we each have our struggles in life no matter where we live and that some may struggle more than others but together we can help each other get through the tough times. This virtue made me think of life differently and I hope in the future I can explore the world more and have more conversations and experiences like this one.

          For the final topic, I want to reflect on the professional ethics module. This module taught us about professional ethics within our industry. In this module, we had to read a few different ethical codes written by various organizations. Some of the main points that were shared throughout the codes were that it is important to treat others with respect in the industry and that we need to uphold the safety, welfare, and health of the public.  These are just two of many points which were made but this module showed me that it is important to go into the industry with some knowledge of ethics to both protect yourself, the company, and the users. No matter what position you hold in the industry you must always do your best to uphold the ethical code. My takeaway from this module was that you must have an ethical code because one day you might be asked to do something that goes against your ethics and you will have a choice to make. I always want to remember this module continuing in my professional journey because I truly believe that it’s important to have some code to live by.