Security & Ethical Challenges

Management Information Systems

M. Muzaffar Zahoor
Objectives

 Identify ethical issues in how the use

of information technologies in business
affects employment, individuality,
working conditions, privacy, crime,
health, and solutions to societal
problems.

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Ethical Responsibility of Business
Professionals

 To promote ethical use of information

technology in workplace.

 To make decisions about business

activities and use of IT under
consideration of ethical dimensions.

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Ethical Responsibility of Business
Professionals(continued)

 Business Ethics
 Managers must confront numerous ethical
questions concerned with Business Ethics.
 Basic categories of ethical issues
 Intellectual property rights.
 Consumer & employee privacy.
 Security of company information.
 Workplace safety

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Ethical Responsibility of Business
Professionals(continued)

 Technology Ethics
 Another important ethical dimension
 Four principles serve as basic ethical
dimension
 Proportionality:
 Good must outweigh any harm or risk
 Must be no alternative that achieves the same or
comparable benefits with less harm or risk

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Ethical Responsibility of Business
Professionals(continued)

 Technology Ethics (continued)

 Informed consent
 Those affected should understand and accept the
risks
 Justice
 Benefits and burdens of technology should be
distributed fairly
 Minimized Risk
 Even if judged acceptable by the other three
guidelines, the technology must be implemented so
as to avoid all unnecessary risk
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Ethical Responsibility of Business
Professionals(continued)

 Ethical Guidelines
 Business and IS professionals should
follows:
 Acting with integrity.
 Increasing your professional competence.
 Setting high standards of personal performance.
 Accepting responsibility for your work.
 Advancing the health, privacy and general
welfare of the public.

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 Computer Crime
Who commits computer crime?
 Association of Information
Technology Professionals
(AITP) definition includes
 The unauthorized use, access,
modification, and destruction of
hardware, software, data, or
network resources
 Unauthorized release of
information
 Unauthorized copying of
software
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 Computer Crime
List of Top 20 Countries with the highest
 Hacking rate of Cybercrime (source: Business
Week/Symantec
 The obsessive use of
computers, or the
unauthorized access
and use of networked
computer systems
 Cyber Theft
 Involves unauthorized
network entry and the
fraudulent alteration of
computer databases

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Source: http://www.enigmasoftware.com/top-20-countries-the-most-cybercrime/
Computer Crime (continued)

 Unauthorized use at work

 Also called time and resource theft
 May range from doing private
consulting or personal finances, to
playing video games, to unauthorized
use of the Internet on company
networks

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 Computer Crime (continued)
 Software Piracy  Theft of intellectual
 Unauthorized
copying of software
 Software is
intellectual property
protected by
copyright law and
user licensing
agreements
property
 Other forms of
intellectual property
covered by
copyright laws
 Music, videos and
images
 Articles & books
 Other written works
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Computer Crime (continued)
 Computer viruses and worms
 Virus
 A program that cannot work without being
inserted into another program

 Worm
 A distinct program that can run
unaided

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Computer Crime (continued)

 Adware and Spyware

 Adware
 A software serve useful and
fulfilling function that allows
internet advertisers to display
advertisements as banners and
pop-up ads without consent of
the computer user.
 Collects information about the
user for website owner.
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Computer Crime (continued)

 Adware and Spyware (continued)

 Spyware
 Special class of Adware
 Any software that utilize user’s Internet
connection in the background without their
knowledge and explicit permission.
 Collects address, internet surfing habits to
credit card, user name, passwords and other
personal information.

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Privacy Issues

 IT makes it technically and economically

feasible to collect, store, integrate,
interchange, and retrieve data and
information quickly and easily.
 Benefit – increases efficiency and
effectiveness
 But, may also have a negative effect on
individual’s right to privacy

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Privacy Issues (continued)

 Privacy on the Internet

 Users of the Internet are
highly visible and open to
violations of privacy
 Unsecured with no real rules
 Cookies capture information
about you every time you
visit a site
 That information may be
sold to third parties

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Privacy Issues (continued)
 Privacy on the Internet (continued)
 Protect your privacy by
 Encrypting your messages
 Post to newsgroups through anonymous
remailers
 Ask your ISP not to sell your information to
mailing list providers and other marketers
 Decline to reveal personal data and interests
online
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Privacy Issues (continued)

 Privacy laws
 Attempt to enforce the privacy of
computer-based files and
communications
 Electronic Communications Privacy Act
 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

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Privacy Issues (continued)

 Computer Libel and Censorship

 The opposite side of the privacy debate
 Right to know (freedom of information)
 Right to express opinions (freedom of
speech)
 Right to publish those opinions (freedom of
the press)
 Spamming (un solicited e-mails)
 Flaming (vulgar e-mails)
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Other Challenges

 Employment
 New jobs have been created and
productivity has increased, yet there has
been a significant reduction in some
types of jobs as a result of IT.

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Other Challenges (continued)

 Computer Monitoring
 Concerns workplace privacy
 Monitors individuals, not just work
 Is done continually. May be seen as violating
workers’ privacy & personal freedom
 Workers may not know that they are being
monitored or how the information is being
used
 May increase workers’ stress level
 May rob workers of the dignity of their work
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Other Challenges (continued)

 Working Conditions  Individuality

 IT has eliminated  Computer-based
many monotonous, systems criticized
obnoxious tasks, as impersonal
but has created systems that
others dehumanize and
depersonalize
activities
 Regimentation

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Health Issues

 Job stress
 Muscle damage
 Eye strain
 Radiation exposure
 Accidents
 Some solutions
 Ergonomics (human factors engineering)
 Goal is to design healthy work environments
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Societal Solutions

 Internet and other information technologies

can have many beneficial effects on
society. Use of information technology in:
 Medical diagnosis
 Computer-assisted instruction
 Governmental program planning
 Environmental quality control
 Law enforcement

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THANK YOU

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