Ethical Issues in IT Security

This assignment delves into the ethical challenges confronting IT security personnel. It identifies key issues like privacy concerns related to accessing user data, and examines codes of ethics guiding their conduct. The paper analyzes specific scenarios involving kickbacks and product recommendations, highlighting how adhering to ethical principles is crucial for maintaining professionalism and public trust in the field.

Running head: NETWORK ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT
Ethical Issues for IT Security Personnel
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Executive Summary:
The report discusses about the ethical issues of the IT security professionals. The report then
identifies the ethical issues of the IT professionals and discusses about the codes of ethics. The
code of ethics also answers few questions in the report and justify them accordingly.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................5
Identification of Ethical Issues........................................................................................................5
Code of Ethics for Analyzing the Issue...........................................................................................5
Evaluation of Issues and Justification..............................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
The IT security personnel have great deal of power in terms of accessing information
involving confidential data. Moreover, they can also access various information related to
companies and individuals that ensure them with a great deal of power. Often seen that such
power abused and therefore the need for the ethical issues springs up. Thus, the ethical issues
that IT personnel face is mostly related to privacy.
Identification of Ethical Issues
The common ethical issues confronted by the IT security personnel is whether they
should have the right to access the private email of the network users and monitor websites of
network users. Then there is the ethical issue that involves whether the professional should
install key loggers on the machine for capturing everything typed by the user. Moreover, certain
trends observed that seem to raise the ethical issue in question (Steinbock, London & Arras,
2013). The trends however involve the increasing dependency on computer systems for carrying
out critical operations, dependency on networking advances and the internet for copying data
from one location to another. Moreover, the advances in data analytics techniques that involves
acquiring data from multiple sources.
Code of Ethics for Analyzing the Issue
There are certain professional codes of ethics designed for helping the IT personnel to
ensure ethical business conduct. These codes of ethics not only describe the values of the
company or organization ethically but also help in reflecting their mission. These codes meant to
describe approaches to the employees for addressing different issues following particular

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standards (Whelan et al., 2014). However, the IT security personnel do not have a rule making
body but they do have specialized professional organizations to dictate the codes of professional
behavior. These organizations include Association of Information Technology Professionals
(AITP), Cyber Security Institute (CSI), Independent Computer Consultants (ICCA), Information
Systems Security Association (ISSA), Computing Technology Industry Association (Comp TIA)
and Association for Computer Operations Management (AFCOM).
The presence of these bodies thus acts as a reminder for the society to respect the existing
code of ethics. These bodies are also empowered to impose sanctions in cases of any ethical
violation. The bodies also promote corporate influence toward the interest of the specific group.
Such interest usually involves reduction of competition through limitation, enhancing the
difficulty of the function access, general price increment since they allow coordinated payment
fixing in monopolistic way, promotion of the practice for special treatment and recognizing those
that are specific activity dependent(Corey et al., 2014).
There are various independent groups implementing the IT code of ethics. However, the
guidelines include what the professional must abide by:
 The IT security personnel must strive to know themselves and be honest to the
best of capability.
 The personnel must conduct the business in a way so that professionalism and
integrity maintained.
 The personnel must respect one’s privacy and confidentiality.
 The personnel must possess a high standard of knowledge and skill
 They should maintain a confidential relationship with the people they serve

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 They should be able to build public reliance through their conduct and practice.
Evaluation of Issues and Justification
If one follows the formulated code of ethics, the IT security personnel need to follow then
marking up the software and equipments while cost implementation is against the code of ethics
as security personnel adopt dishonest means to carry out the business when should have been
honest enough to perform at the best of their capacities (Pager, Holden & Golenko, 2012).
Kickbacks are form of negotiated bribery where a certain amount of bribe paid to the taker in
return of the rendered services. In this case, there is a negotiation in the remuneration far ahead
of time. Therefore, taking kickbacks from manufacturers would mean accepting a form of
bribery on the part of the personnel that goes against the code of ethics. Moreover, it is also
against the ethical norms of the IT personnel to accept commissions from the manufacturers for
persuading clients for choosing their products (Inderst & Ottaviani, 2012). The personnel should
not forget that business should be in a manner where professionalism and integrity maintained to
the best of ability. Moreover, as per the code of ethics, the personnels should help build public
reliance and not take undue advantage of their belief by misguiding them towards the company
in which they hold stock with. The choice of products should be the clients call (Morrow et al.,
2013).
Conclusion
The report discusses about the ethical issues of the IT security personnel. There is also
discussion about the identification of the ethical issues and the various codes of ethics for the IT
security personnel. Based on the questions there are few given questions analyzed and then
justifications provided.

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References
Corey, G., Corey, M. S., Corey, C., & Callanan, P. (2014). Issues and ethics in the helping
professions with 2014 ACA codes. Nelson Education.
Inderst, R., & Ottaviani, M. (2012). Competition through commissions and kickbacks. The
American Economic Review, 102(2), 780-809.
Morrow, E., Cotterell, P., Robert, G., Grocott, P., & Ross, F. (2013). Mechanisms can help to use
patients' experiences of chronic disease in research and practice: an interpretive synthesis.
Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 66(8), 856-864.
Pager, S., Holden, L., & Golenko, X. (2012). Motivators, enablers, and barriers to building allied
health research capacity. Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, 5, 53.
Steinbock, B., London, A. J., & Arras, J. (Eds.). (2013). Ethical issues in modern medicine:
Contemporary readings in bioethics. McGraw-Hill.
Whelan, J. P., Hill, M., Ginley, M., & Meyers, A. W. (2014). Ethics in sport and exercise
psychology. American Psychological Association.