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.

Below is a reflection of my time during the course, including some ideas and newfound knowledge that I had the privilege of gaining throughout:

The Cybersecurity Ethics course is one that challenged me to educate myself on topics I had never before considered to be a part of the Cybersecurity world. The first of the topics that will be covered in this reflection which taught me the most, or required me to change my perception / stance on ideas I had never considered the other side for would have to be the ethical tools. More specifically, the uniqueness and variety of those that were provided and required to use in our Case Analysis discussions. The second topic that will be discussed were the documents provided in the class which offered a chance to learn more about what is going on in the cyber world, as well as provided an opportunity to grow an understanding of what challenges one might face in this line of work. The third and final topic that will be covered is how the class itself has changed my positions in general on the idea of ethics and how they can be applied to different subjects that relate to my field of study.

The ethical tools covered in this course ranged from philosophical ideas such as deontology, and consequentialism to more complicated discussions on morality and logic. The one ethical tool that struck me as the most intriguing would have to be the ethics of care tool, and how it was applied to determine whether or not a case of whistle blowing was moral or immoral. Before the analysis, I had not quite considered the idea of alternate positions when it comes to whistleblowing. I had always for some reason believed that whistle blowing was deemed bad, without really wondering why it was considered to be so. However, with this assignment I had the opportunity to explore and research a specific whistle blowing topic and I came upon the understanding that there are a number of different reasons for whistleblowing. Some of these reasons could be deemed immoral, but this one instance opened my eyes because of this ethical tool. It emphasized relationships in instances such as working relationships and relationships with those who you have no connection with, and how those relationships interact with moral rules. The main takeaway from these ideas and these tools was that consumed ideas cannot be justified without consideration for all applicable sides.

The documents provided by the professors offered a different sort of insight into what the world of Cyber Security looks like on a professional level. We had the opportunity to read and contemplate scholarly articles and books from those who are out in the field, to discuss and determine what the authors meant in our own ideas as well as seeing what our peers thought of these articles also. The documents gave us a sort of glimpse into the future of what challenges professionals of our field take on, whether it be through a research paper on anonymity for social media and schools, or a paper on cyber attacks that could potentially lead to global conflict. The main takeaway for this would have to be that the field of cybersecurity is always changing, and the need to keep informed will never go away. By providing us with documents that cause us to learn new ideas and promote further research, I can go into the future knowing that this field is one in which researchers and professionals share ideas and goals to keep the cyber world safe and protected from external threats and that there are others who might have gone through similar cases in the past that I can look into.

The final topic would have to be how my ideas for ethics and how it can be applied to my major. Before this class, I had not considered ethics to be applicable to the job in the slightest. When considering the field, it always seemed to lean heavily on the technical side, and avoided the emotions, principles, and values that could provide a reason for cyber attacks on businesses. Now that I have had the opportunity to learn more about ethics itself, and the application of the study into my own field, I have gained a valuable insight into a realm in which I had deemed to be one faceted, when in reality there are an unknown number of factors that can contribute to problems and challenges one might face in the field. These ethical theories and tools relate to these issues in ways I could never have imagined, and the Professor I had worked with throughout the course offered clarification into certain ideas of ethics when I clearly did not understand.