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 cybersecurity ethics and the ways that fundamental ethical theories relate to these core issues.
End of Course Reflection
During the duration of this course I learned a great many things. This course taught me so much about ethics, but not only ethics but how things can affect the world and how cybersecurity aspects of ethics can affect the world. There was many topics that we covered, but some that stood out to me would have to be Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Whistleblowing, and Professional Ethics. These three topics that we covered throughout the course and wrote on using different ethical values are the ones that jumped out and really grabbed my attention during the course.
The first one I want to talk about is Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR. When you think of corporations you think of them making a profit and not caring about anybody and when you are thinking like that you see corporations as bad and only looking out for themselves. But, during this course I learned that corporations are ethically obligated to make profits. There is a certain type of ethics in which, if a case had to be made, corporations are morally entitled to make a profit before anything else. That said ethical tool is Deontology and it says as long as they are following a universal set of certain rules and embody those rules then they can be morally right. This helped me gain a certain nuance on my opinions of corporations because before I only saw them as greedy and power hungry, however after this I see them as only doing what they must and be in the right for many of the things they do to make a profit because that is their only goal and what it was created for. If there was something I could takeaway from this learning aspect with CSR it would be to not judge a book by its cover and I mean by that to not just look on the outside and make assumptions because no matter how bad it may seem there could be a certain reason that makes it all okay and not as bad.
The next topic that really stuck with me is Whistleblowing. This topic is one that I never thought I would actually be interested in. I feel like I gained a deeper understanding of whistleblowing and why people actually are whistleblowers. During the course we wrote about one of the more recent famous whistleblowers of Chelsea Manning. In the beginning I didn’t think anything of it, but after starting to write the paper and learning more I saw that it is never exactly black and white. People become whistleblowers to try and enact change and in some situations in order to do that they have to break the law and leak classified documents which in turn leads them to losing the life they once knew. This type of thing is something that people truly decide to do because they see a wrong and feel like only by having the public in the know of this can change happen and oversight be brought in. If I could have a takeaway from this for my future self to remember it and be guided by it would have to be always remember do what you believe is right in the long run.
The last topic that really impacted me is Professional Ethics. Before we even started to write about Professional Ethics and did a case analysis on the subject I just saw it as do the right thing ethically and did not know how cybersecurity could have something to do with professional ethics rather than being the same as regular professional business ethics. After doing the case analysis I can say that may view has deepened and it was very informational for me to learn and know cybersecurity can be used unethically and in the wrong way. There are sometimes when a business will push the limits of being ethically and morally right and with that you must always do what you believe is right. If you ever feel that something is off or seems wrong speak up and don’t sit idly by because it can have an impact on a great many people. Something I would take away after this topic would be if you see something morally wrong speak up and do something about it because it can be wrong.