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

Reflective Writing Assignment

Throughout this ethics course, I have taken away new views that have changed how I perceive the world. Moreover, the opinions I have developed will greatly benefit whichever path I choose to follow in the future. Throughout this reflection, I would like to discuss my three most significant takeaways from the course: the danger of future elections due to information warfare, whistleblowing’s ability to be rooted in loyalty, and the need for America to adopt a set of privacy laws. These impactful lessons have shaped my view of ethics in cybersecurity, and I hope this reflection will clarify why.

Information warfare is a relatively new concept, referring to an operation to gain an information advantage over an opponent. This is an important definition to understand as it proves that Facebook’s targeted marketing used to influence the 2016 election was an act of information warfare. In many cases, it took a long time to realize this as people simply considered it a form of advertising. Still, Facebook was using citizens’ private data to pick specific ads more likely to influence their votes to gain an advantage and support their candidate unbiasedly. Disregarding that a social media platform should not take such an influential and biased role in politics, this also shows issues with the future of American politics as Facebook was able to get away with having such an impact in the president’s election. People allowed them to get away with it, as advertising is not often considered unethical. Still, it is a matter of how they used specific information to target ads effectively. This has changed the ethical implications of the future of American political races, and it will require all of us to try and distance ourselves from the influence of advertisements. It was a valuable lesson to learn that even everyday ads have ethical implications, which must be considered when making decisions.

When I first learned about whistleblowing, I thought it was a means of undermining your company. However, the story of Chelsea Manning taught me that sometimes whistleblowing is required to help a group that you are incredibly loyal to. Manning was the one who leaked the video of the disrespect and dangerous actions of specific American soldiers in Iraq. Manning had gained access to this video but quickly learned that the government was trying to cover this video up internally so they could quietly deal with it. However, Manning’s concern that a lack of punishment wouldn’t send the message that American troops can’t be acting like this as it will ruin how people view the United States. After learning that it was being covered up, Chelsea realized that she would not be able to influence the opinions of her higher-ups alone, so she chose to leak the video to the public in hopes of causing a public outcry which would force the military to take strict action and ensure that he would not happen again. While this ultimately didn’t influence the military’s disciplinary actions, this did prove to me that whistleblowing is not an act of malice to hurt your organization. While I disagree with Manning’s choice of not trying to handle the matter internally before taking it public, it taught me that we could not consider whistleblowing ethically wrong just because it goes against the organization’s wishes. Instead, whistleblowing can still be morally correct as people may do it out of a deep-seated obligation to the company, showing not disrespect but ultimately extreme loyalty. This taught me the value of understanding the perspective of the culprit behind any potentially unethical action as they may be doing what they think is right, which causes us to take a different approach when understanding them.

After learning about the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations, it has become evident that the United States needs to adopt a similar approach to privacy laws. A consistent note I have noticed throughout all of the cases I’ve analyzed in this course is that privacy, specifically data privacy, is among the most critical and valued things in nearly every society. This is evident from our first case analysis, where people want their homes removed from google maps, and the last, where people are concerned that Facebook is using their private information to change their political views. The most excellent solution I have learned about that would solve people’s fears over data privacy is a plan similar to the GDPR. This system allows people to regain control of their data and how it is used. It implemented a system that allowed people to track exactly how their data was used, afford it a greater level of privacy to begin with, and even allow people to have that private data removed from the internet if it caused them concern. Throughout the rest of our cases in this course, I consistently wondered how having a system like this would have improved the outcome of these courses. This has influenced me to use the GDPR plan as a blueprint for how data privacy should be approached and even inspired me to try finding ways to help implement a similar plan in our own country.

This reflection focuses on the most important point I learned during this ethics course, there is no one correct answer to any ethical question. For example, information warfare proved that new political actions aren’t always ethically correct, whistleblowing proved that not all issues are black and white, and the EU’s GDPR proves that no single country has all the right answers. I believe that learning this lesson about ethics has taught me that ethics is all about focusing on every aspect of the situation, no matter what occurs. This will help me make the most informed ethical decisions, and I’m grateful for this course for teaching me that.