An Ethical Dilemma: Operating from the Frontline of Cyber Security

SCHOOL OF COMPUTING AND MATHS, Charles Sturt University
An ethical dilemma: operating from the frontline of cyber security
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Word Count: 1453

Introduction
Business ethical issues are embraced within all organization whether small or big and it is
not just a fad with the limited time period. In this context, the article “An ethical dilemma:
operating front line of cyber security” focuses on the ethical issues faced by the white hat
hackers and black hat hackers. Most of the hackers are being judged in accordance to their
work even if they are doing it for the well-being of the community and organisation (Pyper,
2017). In this aspect, the news article shows that in the Australian organization cyber security
has turned into a major issue of ethical dilemma where hackers are beginning to suffer from
an image problem. They are most of the time perceived as a group anti-social nerds hiding
away from the reality of present time hackers. On the other hand, it can be said that hackers
nowadays are more organized, and criminal assumptions are not always true. This is the
moral dilemma that is hovering over Australian organization related ICT operations.
1. Professional Ethics Perspectives
From the perspectives of ethical hackers, it can be seen that there are a group of black hat
hackers who are popularly signified as criminals. From the article it is evident that, these
hackers are those who manipulate data, dominating the mainstream bunch of hackers thereby
highlighting their ethical counterparts (Thomas, Burmeister & Low, 2017). On the contrary,
white hat hackers are those who use their technical knowledge to breach the technical issue
for mitigating the vulnerabilities present in cyber security issues other than exploiting them
(Pyper, 2017). According to the professional perspectives of ethics, there is six major
principle that is associated with they are honesty, improvement of the quality of life,
competencies, priority for the communities interest, professional growth and professionalism.
Honesty
Ethical hackers or white hat hacker's shares the same method of hacking but for an
honest purpose whereas the black hats perform the test to bypass the defence operations.
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Ethical hackers, other than taking any benefits of the vulnerabilities they document the issues,
offer advice to fix the issues (Lunnay, 2015). These kinds of problems are often seen in ICT
operation owing from the improper configuration of system or flaws present within the
software.
Improvement of quality of life
Ethical hackers do not always perform it in the same way. They may have contrasted
motivation and way of hacking. There are some of the hackers who prefer to work for the
greater good for improving the quality standards of life and to seek professional growth. On
the contrary, some of the hackers are directly employed by the organizations on a
professional call (Caron et al., 2016). Many organization hire hackers to solve bug bounties,
where employees are paid to find out the vulnerabilities within the organizational system that
are growing in the United States as well as Australian organization. In this aspect, private bug
bounties offer the professional hackers to examine their skills for even more virtuous
opportunities.
Priority for the community’s interest
White hat hackers are accountable for reviewing the vulnerabilities present in the
software that are done in priority to save the community (Haug, 2015). There are several
instances when the government appoints the hackers to perform a task to save the community
from big issues such as terrorism or financial fraud case. These hackers are that point of the
time appointed to perform the task on behalf of the government to save the community.
Professional growth
Professional hackers are consistently seeking for a growth in an ethical activity to
work on a freelance basis, and are looking for a permanent career in this field. In order to
gain professional development, some of the hackers are officially gaining qualification to
evaluate their capability (Ferguson, Thornley & Gibb, 2015). There are also some training
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