CP1005 - Lecture Four - Ethics and Information Systems

Ethics - the principles and standards that guide our behaviour toward other people.

 Ethical issues affected by technology advances
– Intellectual property
– Copyright
– Fair use doctrine
– Pirated software
– Counterfeit software'

Privacy is a major issue and right to privacy is the law.

Privacy: The right to be left alone when you want to be, to have control over your own personal possessions, and not to be observed without your consent.

Confidentiality: The assurance that messages and information are available only to those who are authorized to view them.

Information has no Ethics - Acting ethicially and legally are not always the same.

Ethical Computer Use Policy

Ethical computer us policy: Contains general principles to guide computer user behaviour.

Information Privacy Policy - The unethical use of information typically occurs "unintentionally" when it is used for new purposes.

AUP - Acceptable Use Policy - A user must agree to before provided access to a network or the internet.

Email Privacy Policies, Internet Use Policy (Describes Available Internet Services, Purpose and Restriction of Internet Access, Complements ethical computer use policy, describes user responsibilities, states user responsibilities, states ramification for violations)

Anti-Spam Policy - Unsolicited email.

Ethics in the Workplace

Workplace monitoring is a concern for many employees. Organizations can be held financially responsible for their employees' actions.

Monitoring Technologies

The tracking of people's actions by such measures as number of keystrokes, error rate, and number of transactions processed.

INFORMATION SECURITY

Information Security is the protection of information from accidental or intentional misuse by persons inside or outside an organization. Protecting intellectual assets costs money; about 15% of the IT budget in Asian Pacific Companies.

There are Five Steps to Creating an INFORMATION SECURITY PLAN

1. Develop the information security policies.
2. Communicate the information security policies. 
3. Identify critical information assets and risks. 
4. Test and reevaluate risks.
5. Obtain stakeholder support.

After people, technology is the next defence line.

There are three primary information technology security areas:

1. Authentication and authorisation.
2. Prevention and resistance.
3. Detection and response.

Something the User Knows, Such as a User ID and Password. FACT over 50% of help-desk calls are password related.


Types of Hackers

White-hat Hackers, Black-hat Hackers, Hactivist, Script kiddies or script bunnies, Cracker, Cyber terrorist.

Detecting and Responding

By far the most effective form of protection is virus protection and firewall protection.

Virus Software written with malicious intent to cause annoyance or damage may include; Worm, Denial-of-service attack, Trojan-horse virus, backdoor program or polymorphic virus and worm.