Cyber-Crime Report: Understanding Ethical Implications of Petya Attack

This report delves into the ethical dimensions of the Petya ransomware cyber attack, examining it through the lens of various classical ethical theories. The study begins by establishing the importance of ethics in cybersecurity, particularly in light of the actions of black-hat hackers. It then analyzes the Petya attack, a 2016 ransomware incident targeting Microsoft Windows systems, through the frameworks of utilitarianism, deontology, and social contract theory. The report discusses how each theory provides a unique perspective on the ethical implications of the attack, considering factors such as the maximization of pleasure, the fulfillment of duties and rights, and the violation of social contracts. Additionally, it explores the application of virtue ethics in fostering effective mentoring relationships within cybersecurity. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for businesses to consider ethical considerations in their incident responses and overall cybersecurity strategies, highlighting the interconnectedness of breach handling and ethical practices. References and a mind map visualization are included to support the analysis.

Running head: CYBER-CRIME
Cyber-Crime
(Petya Cyber Attack)
Name of the student:
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Author Note

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Understanding classical theories and ways to resolve the issues for cyber-crime:
Ethics is a critical element of the sound defense strategy of cyber-security. Despite any clear
ethical rules and standards, the professionals of cybersecurity have been indistinguishable from
various criminals with black-hat. They are against the individual whom they have been seeking to
secure the data and systems. In this study, Information Technology ethics is understood from the case
of 'Petya' ransomware attack.
Applying various classical ethical theories:
The Petya is the family of encrypting ransomware. It was initially found in 2016. It has
targeted the systems that are Microsoft Windows. It has affected the record of the master boot for
executing the payload. This is to encrypt the file system at the hard drive. The first company at
Australia to be affected by the attack of the Cadbury's Chocolate Factory in Hobart (Richardson and
North 2017). The utilitarianism has been considering the results of behaviors or actions. It has been
seeking whether it can optimize pleasure through minimizing the pain. The black hat hacking has
been seeking for increasing the pain that has been inflicted on the external parties. This can be
typically political and technological. This is the only variant to hack considering to be unethical as
per utilitarianism.
To understand the ethicality of the privacy of information. This is needed to contemplate the
problems under the ethical system. The duties and rights or deontology have been concentrating on
performing activities. These are right in themselves instead of being right due to their outcomes.
Implementing the moral act as the activity to determine the rights of other people and the duties posed
on the actors. The approach is suitable for the analysis of the privacy of data (Fayi 2018). This is
because one can claim the right towards protecting data with corresponding duties. For finding the

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duties to be deployed for securing data privacy, the source of the right that the person has towards the
privacy is to be considered.
As per the social contract theory, as the business has been nominally representing the people,
the attack on the organization is the attack on the people. This is the violation of the political rights of
the communities. It shows the coercive activity for the community (Le Guernic and Legay 2017). In
this way, it can be seen as an act of aggression. Through the help of the social contract theory, the
cyber attack of Petya has been seen as the act of aggression and is the moral cause of the war.
For the case of Petya, through virtue ethics is helpful for the cybersecurity professionals to
determine and create effective mentoring relationships. It can be done through the smart mode of
practice and models. This has been comprised of technical excellence along with exemplars of the
cybersecurity leadership that are ethically superior (McIntosh, Jang-Jaccard and Watters 2018).
The above study demonstrates why various businesses must be undertaking ethical
considerations. This is understood from the incident responses to undertaking the proper elements at
every issue. The analysis of the classical ethical theories is analyzed for best fitting the reputations,
brands business partners and customers. The discussion is sufficient enough to prove how breach
handling and ethics is able to go hand in hand.

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Visualization of the above arguments for the ethical measures to be considered against the
cyber breach of 'Petya' Ransomware attack:
Figure 1: “Mind Map to understand the scenario”
(Source: Created by Author)

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References:
Fayi, S.Y.A., 2018. What Petya/NotPetya ransomware is and what its remidiations are. In
Information Technology-New Generations (pp. 93-100). Springer, Cham.
Le Guernic, C. and Legay, A., 2017, March. Ransomware and the legacy crypto API. In Risks and
Security of Internet and Systems: 11th International Conference, CRiSIS 2016, Roscoff, France,
September 5-7, 2016, Revised Selected Papers (Vol. 10158, p. 11). Springer.
McIntosh, T.R., Jang-Jaccard, J. and Watters, P.A., 2018, December. Large Scale Behavioral
Analysis of Ransomware Attacks. In International Conference on Neural Information Processing
(pp. 217-229). Springer, Cham.
Richardson, R. and North, M.M., 2017. Ransomware: Evolution, mitigation and prevention.
International Management Review, 13(1), p.10.