Ethical Concerns on Record Keeping

This article discusses the ethical concerns on record keeping using eBay's data breach as a case study. It highlights the importance of proper record keeping practices and customer privacy protection in running a business ethically and successfully.

Running header: Ethical concerns on Record Keeping 1
Ethical concerns on Record Keeping
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A case on eBay
According to a media report published on BBC by Wakefield Jane (2014) regarding
eBay’s investigations on the data breach, a massive privacy breach of eBay’s customer records is
discussed. This incident is considered to be one of the largest privacy breaches due to the
company’s failure to incorporate baseline security controls on records keeping. The author has
also commented on compromised details regarding the customer information such as emails,
physical addresses, passwords and phone numbers.
In 2014, eBay experienced a massive data breach of customer sensitive data due to the
negligence of the management of customer records. Hackers gained access to a number of
employee credentials hence being able to gain access to the network. To expose eBay’s unethical
practices different points were highlighted. One, it took eBay about two months to detect that its
employees’ emails were spoofed hence personal information was released to the perpetrators (Al
Balushi, 2016). Two, the company’s leadership had failed to encrypt the personal identifiable
information, and also it lacked accountability for the breach. Lastly, the leadership’s delayed
both threat analysis and response procedures which contributed profoundly to the breach.
The eBays’ incident thoroughly exposes why record keeping is a crucial concern to every
organization since if the customer's rights and privacy are not protected, failure is inevitable.
Poor record keeping may expose an organization to a range of risks. Therefore, it's critical to
ensure every type of information kept by the business is tracked continually since if the records
are not appropriately managed, companies can be potentially crippled (Gwebu, Wang & Wang,
2018). In addition, the magnitude of violation can also affect the trust of the customers hence
making it hard for the customers to trust both public and private organizations with their data.
Lousy record management promotes different consequences other than customer mistrust. For
example, financial implications. In cases where records are not adequately tracked, companies
can run into trouble with both taxes and budgets. Besides, productivity can be hindered.
In responding to a privacy breach particularly in technological companies, different steps
are considered in order to ensure customer’s trust is retained. They include; offering apologies,
informing the users, increase in security awareness and vulnerability testing. In reacting to the
incidence, eBay claimed that no social security numbers or credit card information belonging to
the employees were compromised (Cox, 2014). However, its refusal to recognize the presence of

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attackers and assuming the customer's data was safe caused the company both financial loss and
customer mistrust. eBay urged its customers to change their passwords as a response to the
breach. Besides, eBay attributed the violation to being caused by the attackers, but they never
owned their responsibility of the breach (Al Balushi, 2016).
eBays breach didn’t get a lot of attention as other breaches, and I believe the authorities
should have followed up the matter seriously. This is because, just after one week after eBay
recognized of the breach, the hackers began selling the stolen customer records for more than
thirty dollars per account (Papagalos, 2014). The management of customer records should have
been conducted quite correctly by improving security measures and also ensuring continuous
vulnerability tests. However, the authorities followed up the matter to identify how severe the
breach was but no sufficient information was provided. New reports suggested that more eBay
customer details were appearing for sale in a hackers site known as Pastebin (Wakefield, 2014).
This incidence shows that both customer privacy protection and proper record keeping practices,
are essential to run a business ethically and successfully.

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References
Al Balushi, B. (2016). An Analysis of eBay’s Communication Response to The Hacking Crisis
and the Impact on Users’ Trust and Behavioral Intentions.
Cox, R. (2014). Truly Massive Data Breach at eBay. Retrieved from
http://info.rippleshot.com/blog/ebay
Gwebu, K. L., Wang, J., & Wang, L. (2018). The Role of Corporate Reputation and Crisis
Response Strategies in Data Breach Management. Journal of Management Information
Systems, 35(2), 683-714.
Papagalos, L. (2014). Why the eBay Data Breach Didn’t Get The Same Attention As Target |.
Retrieved from https://www.sitelock.com/blog/2014/06/ebay-target-data-breach/
Wakefield, J. (2014). eBay faces investigation over breach. Retrieved from
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27539799