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

End of Semester Reflection

I learned many things in this cybersecurity ethics class. At first, I was a little upset because I really hate to read and write papers and I assumed that I was done with that portion of my college career, but the material we read, and research was kind of interesting (except for the ethical tool stories).

One topic I was very interested in was whistleblowing. I wasn’t really aware of what exactly it was when I started the class but after reading about Snowden, Manning, and doing my own research, I have grown to learn a lot about the topic. This topic makes me kind of scared to work for the government because I never want to find myself in a situation where I’m debating on being morally correct or keeping my job and staying above the law. Also, its sad to see how the government portrays whistle blowers as spies and other negative connotations’ actually hard to judge whether the whistle blower was right or the government because none of us were there to witness whatever issues and allegations that might arise.  My parents have always pushed me to work for the government, but I feel like I would be more comfortable working for a private organization like Delloit or Instagram or something. One takeaway I got from this topic is that you should always do what you feel is right. Even if it may seem wrong to others.

Another topic I became more familiarized with was Privacy. My thoughts on privacy changed a little because I wasn’t as aware how important privacy was and how we should continue to fight to protect it. I always made sure I kept my passwords strong, and I never post too much on social media. This is a personal preference I don’t like my business on the internet, and I don’t like people to know where I am and what I’m doing all the time (including friends). I never had to worry about data leaking that way. But this class did help me to understand how my data could be leaked or misused. I also remember using Google Street View and Google earth as a kid because I thought it was cool, but I never thought of how much of an invasion of privacy it was. I never thought of how people could use it to harm others or embarrass others. One takeaway I got from this topic was to watch what I sign up for and where I put my information online.

The last topic I enjoyed learning about was Virtue ethics. I think this ethical tool is hard for majority of people to follow. Often times people do not do the right thing for the right reasons. They might do the right thing, but because they have to, not because they want too.

I also never thought of the ethical side of cybersecurity, not did I think it was important prior to taking this class. I think I learned a lot from this class, and although the stories were very boring all of them were a good way of explaining the ethical tools in a non-definition way.