Introduction
A Computer based crime is misconduct that includes a computer system and a network infrastructure. The workstation might have been utilized in the commission of a crime, or the target of one. Cybercrimes have been defined as: "Crimes that have been committed against entities or sets of people with an illegal motive to deliberately damage the reputation of the target or cause physical harm, or loss, to the target directly or indirectly, using up-to-date networks such as the Internet and different mobile devices. Such criminalities have threatened the nation's security and possibly the financial health. Some of the issues that surround these kinds of crimes have become high-profile, mainly those that surround child pornography, hacking, and copyright infringement. There are also complications with privacy when it comes to dealing with confidential information. The information is interrupted or revealed, legitimately or otherwise. Globally, governmental, state and non-state individuals engage in cybercrimes, including spying, monetary theft, and other crimes.
Analyzing the Computer-based Crime Problem
George Reynolds developed an ethical decision-making approach comprising of seven steps that can be used to analyze the computer-based crime problem.
Getting the Facts
The increased automation of the United States critical infrastructure has opened up more access points that can be used by potential adversaries to target the systems. The new technologies used in the automation process raise new security issues do not exist prior to adoption. The main reason for this is the advancement and the availability of sophisticated malicious software that can be used in cyber warfare to degrade, disrupt, or destroy the critical infrastructure systems.
Most criminals who engage in cyber-crimes do not do it for ego but are driven by financial benefits. The criminals used their computer expertise to target to exploit and steal from people and organizations. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), approximately $ 1,070,711,522 was lost through computer-based crimes in 2015 (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2016). Computer-based crimes like child pornography also have a negative impact on our culture and degrade people’s morals. Copyright infringement brings about intellectual property rights issues where copyrighted material is reproduced and shared with others (Kumra & Mittal, 2010). Finally, computers facilitate global exchange of information on a large scale through the internet. The main issue here is that there is a potential of private information being disclosed to the public thereby violating people’s privacy.
Identifying the Stakeholders
The primary stakeholders in the computer-based crimes include individuals, the private sector, and the government. Individuals are targeted everyday by cyber criminals through activities such as cyber stalking and scams such as phishing to obtain their private information. Individuals should be educated on computer-based crimes, their impacts, and how to protect themselves from the crimes. For example, individuals should be taught about online shopping and how to determine whether a seller is legit or not.
Private corporations have also been a target of cyber-crime where criminals use malicious software to gain access to an organization’s systems or damaging the software and hardware of the organization’s systems rendering disrupting them. The methods used by the criminals to target corporations include denial of service attacks and compromising corporate emails. Private corporations should implement early detection framework system, digital identification, and encryption techniques (Gunarto, 2012).
Crimes against governments are known as cyber terrorism and although they are not that common they can cause havoc and panic to the civilian population when they happen. The government can develop and adopt smart grids to provide remote control of critical infrastructure.
Consequences
The above actions will have positive consequences on cyber-crime stakeholders. Educating individuals on computer-based crimes protect them from being victims of the crime. Early detection frameworks will help private corporations quickly detect cyber attacks and prevent any damages to their systems. The digital identification and encryption will prevent any unauthorized access into their systems. Adoption of smart grids will allow the government to prevent any unauthorized use of critical infrastructure.
Evaluating various Ethical Principles
An applicable law in this situation is the citizens right to privacy. This means that no private information of an individual should be publicly disclosed. Procter and Gamble’s policy is focusing on improving the lives of consumers (Procter and Gamble, 2008). Ethical principles that can be used to back up the above law and policy is contractarianism theory and normative theories of business ethics.
Contractarianism ethics advocates for upholding of human rights of people who are involved in a situation. The United States governments and several private corporates hold huge amounts of data concerning people’s private information. Public release of this information will be a violation of people’s privacy that is a fundamental right in the United States. Therefore, the government and the corporates should ensure that they protect this information from any type of computer-based crime that might result in the data falling into the wrong hands.
Normative theories of business ethics focuses on using corporate resources to make as much profit as possible for stockholders as long as the corporate actions are within the legal limits. This means that corporate managers should a way to balance the interest of all corporate stakeholders without infringing any of their rights. Managers should therefore find ways to prevent cyber-crimes that cost private corporations hundreds of millions of dollars and also protect the privacy of their customers.
Developing and Evaluating Options
Corporations especially those that handle people’s private information should develop computer security policies and strategies to safeguard against cyber-crime. Cyber criminals target data while it is passing through insecure network segments. One way of protecting data in such networks is the use of Advanced Encryption Standards that works on various hardware and software platforms. According to the FBI, corporates lost $ 246,226,016 from the compromise of company emails last year alone (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2016). To protect company emails, corporates can use digital identification that comprises of a digital signature and public key. Finally, authorizations, passwords and firewalls should be used to protect data in storage.
Reviewing the Decision
Every corporation’s main objective is to make profit while ensuring quality services to its customers. The decisions taken above will ensure that an organization does not lose money through computer-based criminal activities. Part of providing quality services also involves securing customers’ private information. Customers expect their private information to remain secure with corporations. According to my personal values, customers are the most important stakeholders in an organization and their expectations should be given first priority. The organization should protect customer data with the most efficient method no matter the cost. Others will also see this as a right decision because it does not infringe on anybody’s rights.
Evaluating the results
The recommended decisions achieved the desired results. Advanced Encryption Standards used algorithms to encrypt data in transit thereby protecting it from cyber attack in vulnerable sections of the network. The use of digital identification identifies both the sender and receiver and allowing them to communicate privately. The use of authorizations and passwords will prevent unauthorized people from accessing private data. Firewalls will also prevent access of the organization’s system from outside users by isolating the organization’s network from other computer networks.
Ethical Theory Supporting the Decision
The ethical theory that supports the decision is utilitarianism theory. Utilitarianism ethics seeks to make the world a better place by finding the greatest good not only for oneself but for the greatest number of people as well. The recommended decision does not only focus on the benefit of the organization but also consider profits that are beneficial to stockholders and also the well-being of its customers.
Conclusion
Computer-based crimes have led to various ethical issues including national security, privacy of individuals and copyright infringement. This has resulted to various consequences to all stakeholders involved in the issue. To deal with this issue, ethical principle should be used to evaluate the various laws and policies used to prevent the crimes, so as to come up with the best decision. From the evaluation the best decision for organizations to take is to adopt policies that takes into consideration all stakeholders’ needs. The ethical theory that supports this argument is utilitarianism theory that supports good for majority of the people.
References
Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2016). Cyber Crime. Retrieved June 29, 2016, from Federal Bureau of Investigation, https://www.ic3.gov/media/annualreport/2015_IC3Report.pdf
Gunarto, H. (2012). Ethical issues in Cyberspace and IT society. Retrieved from http://www.apu.ac.jp/~gunarto/it1.pdf
Kumra, R., & Mittal, R. K. (2010). ETHICAL ISSUES IN CYBERAGE. Delhi Business Review, 3(1), . Retrieved from http://www.dbr.shtr.org/v_3n1/dbrv3n1c.pdf
Procter and Gamble. (2008). Our values and policies. Retrieved from http://www.pg.com/images/company/who_we_are/pdf/values_and_policies907.pdf
