Information and Communication Technology Ethical Issues-Free Sample

Question: Discuss about the Information and Communication Technology Ethical Issues. Answer: Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is considered as extended term of information technology and it includes communication devices or applications such as mobile phones, network hardware and software components, satellite systems and various other applications and services (Iep.utm.edu, 2017). ICT has improved form of information technology and various new techniques are introduced by ICT for communication and information sharing worldwide. Today most of the business organizations are implementing ICT applications to make their communication and information sharing better with its clients and customers. While using applications of Information and Communication Technology, personal and business information of users is sending over internet that requires proper security. But some ethical issues such as security, privacy, cyber-crime, DDoS attacks are commonly encountered by ICT users. The purpose of making this report is to discuss an ethical issue on ICT discussed in a medi a article. Besides this, we will analyze article from the perspective of four classical ethical theories utilitarianism, deontology, virtue and contract. The selected article is based on ethical issue of cybercrime in ICT (Sina, 2017). Discussion In this segment of report we will analyze article appropriately on behalf of ethical theories. About Article of Cyber-crime In media article it is discussed that Ethical Hacking is main ethical issue comes under cybercrime. Ethical hacking is done to help an individual or an organization to identify weak points of their system or another security threats that have used by hackers for hacking their systems. The ethical hacking is done by ethical hackers. Ethical hacking is done with the permission of owners for maintaining security of their systems. Generally we can say that security professionals have to take bad actions to perform something good. That is why ethical hacking is considered as ethical issue of ICT that comes under category of cybercrime. Here we have condition that represents ethical hacking is also an ethical issue of ICT (BusinessDictionary.com, 2017). In University of Calgary, hackers conducted email hacking attack to access information about students, their courses, fees structure and another essential information about University. To conduct this hacking, they sent emails with attached virus on Universitys email address and got access of database (Mhrd.gov.in, 2017). To restore this information, they asked for heavy amount from University. The management was ready to pay this amount but it was not a right decision. Here it is a case of unethical issue of ICT and unethical cybercrime, because here without permission of university, information is accessed by hackers. On another side, when security professionals of university try to hack IP addresses of hackers by using hacking approach, then they did this according to ICT ethic norms and with permission of management of university. Therefore, in this case, it will be considered an ethical issue of ICT. Although it is a cybercrime, but it is ethical because it is implemented to hel p University. Now, in next segment of report, we will analyze article on behalf of ethical theories of utilitarianism, deontology, virtue and contract (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2017). Analysis of Article on behalf of Ethical Theories Utilitarianism: According to this ethical theory, an action is considered ethically right if its consequences lead to happiness or ethically wrong if its consequences lead to unhappiness. But it depends upon circumstances that an action is ethically right and wrong. If we analyze article on behalf of this ethical theory then it is right to say that ethical hacking is ethically right because it is implemented by security professionals to help others. Therefore, utilitarianism theory proves that cybercrime implemented by ethical hackers is an ethical issue (Hursthouse, Pettigrove, 2017). Deontology: Deontology is another theory that is used to judge the morality of an action based on rules. This theory also defines as rule based ethics. According to article, it is clearly defined that whether ethical hacking is ethical issue of cybercrime but it is implemented according to rules of companies those ask for this service to get prevention from hacking attacks. Therefore according to this theory, ethical hacking follows ethical rules (Cybercrime, 2017). Virtue: Virtue theory or virtue ethics is an essential approach to ethics and it emphasizes on character of an individual as the key element of ethical thinking. In case of ethical hacking, virtue is a security professional who implements ethical hacking with positive approach to provide help to victims of cyber-attacks. These security professionals are known as white hat hackers or ethical hackers and virtue is considered excellent trait of their character (Techopedia.com, 2017). Contract: The ethical theory of contract is the view that moral and political obligations of persons are dependent upon a contract or agreement for forming the society in which they live. The media article about ethical hacking also defines that ethical hacking is done by security professionals on the behalf of their contract with business organizations to whom they are providing services. In this contract, all legal norms of company are mentioned clearly and ethical hackers have to follow those norms. If security professionals will not follow these norms to perform ethical hacking then it will be considered illegal (BusinessDictionary.com, 2017). In this way, the discussed article has analyzed on the behalf of ethical theories and it is found that ethical hacking is not unethical but it is ethical way to implement cybercrime in Information and Communication Technology. Arguments and Recommendations After this whole discussion, the main point to argue is that Is that okay to hack a website for the purpose of helping owner? In this case we can say that when hackers attack something for some type of gain, then it does not stand on ethical ground in this case. But on another side, when system is broken down by hackers for fun or to better their own skills and to know more about security, then this thing comes under ethical gray area. Besides this, here motivation also affects that how actions of hackers are viewed by others. Therefore, we can say that hacking a website for helping others is right and that is why it is considered ethical issue of ICT. But while implementing ethical hacking, ICT ethics must not be violated by security professionals (TechRepublic, 2017). Conclusion After this whole discussion we can say that in ICT various ethical issues are found that can be considered right and wrong according to circumstances. Cybercrime, privacy, security etc. are also considered as ethical issues of ICT. It means these issues can be ethical right in a condition, but in another condition these can be wrong. In this report, we have clearly mentioned that ethical hacking which is a cybercrime, but it is an ethical issue of ICT. This is because it is right according to ethical theories and also implemented according to ICT ethical rules. That is why, on the behalf of whole discussion we can say that information provided in article about ethical issue is accurate. In this report, we have discussed every argument about this ethical issue of ICT in detail and also provide recommendations accordingly. It is important for every security professional to perform his actions ethically, only then unethical issues of ICT can be resolved. With the advancement in technolo gy, hacking and phishing attacks are increasing continuously and to control this usage of ethics of Information and Communication Technology are required. Not only developers but also at users end security maintenance is important. References BusinessDictionary.com. (2017). What comes after those ellipses?. Retrieved 5 May 2017, from https://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/ethical-issue.html BusinessDictionary.com. (2017). When was the last time you said this?. Retrieved 5 May 2017, from https://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/utilitarianism.html Hursthouse, R., Pettigrove, G. (2017). Virtue Ethics. Plato.stanford.edu. Retrieved 5 May 2017, from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/ Encyclopedia Britannica. (2017). deontological ethics. Retrieved 5 May 2017, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/deontological-ethics Cybercrime. (2017). Ethical Issues. Retrieved 5 May 2017, from https://cps182cybercrime.wordpress.com/ethical-issues/ TechRepublic. (2017). 10 ethical issues confronting IT managers - TechRepublic. Retrieved 5 May 2017, from https://www.techrepublic.com/article/10-ethical-issues-confronting-it-managers/ Sina, I., profile, V., Sina, I. (2017). Cybercrime. I-thics.blogspot.in. Retrieved 5 May 2017, from https://i-thics.blogspot.in/2009/02/cybercrime.html Techopedia.com. (2017). What is Information and Communications Technology (ICT)? - Definition from Techopedia. Retrieved 5 May 2017, from https://www.techopedia.com/definition/24152/information-and-communications-technology-ict Iep.utm.edu. (2017). Social Contract Theory | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 5 May 2017, from https://www.iep.utm.edu/soc-cont/ Mhrd.gov.in. (2017). Information and Communication Technology (ICT) | Government of India, Ministry of Human Resource Development. (2017). Retrieved 5 May 2017, from https://mhrd.gov.in/ict_overview