Applied Ethics in Cybersecurity: Analyzing the PageUp Data Breach

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This essay examines the PageUp data breach through three distinctive perspectives of applied ethics: professional, philosophical, and sociological. The data breach at PageUp, an HR software provider, compromised the personal information of numerous individuals associated with companies like the Reserve Bank of Australia and Telstra. The analysis utilizes professional ethics to assess the responsibilities of IT professionals in preventing such breaches, philosophical ethics to explore the moral duties of organizations in responding to the crisis, and sociological ethics to understand the broader impact on society and privacy. The essay references the Australian Cyber Security Centre's (ACSC) involvement and the measures taken by affected companies, highlighting the importance of integrating ethical considerations into cybersecurity practices to mitigate future risks and promote security awareness.

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PageUp Data Breach
Assignment1: Three Distinctive Perspectives of Applied Ethics
Student Name:
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Word Count: 1430
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1. Introduction
Applied ethics is the branch of ethics that deal with the treatment of ethical issues, practices and
plans in professional as well as personal life and also with the technology. It is categorized into a
different arena and each arena has unique issues. But mainly there are three distinctive
perspectives of applied ethics which are professional ethics, professional ethics, and sociological
ethics. In this report, all three perspectives are explained that how these ethics has helped to
analyze and solved the issue of cyber ethic elaborate in the media article “PageUp Data Breach”.
Cyberethics, also called computer ethics means the issues related to the ICT (Information and
Communication Technology). This essay explains the cyber ethical dilemma arose in the PageUp
software of Australia and how these perspectives have been implemented to identify this
problem.
Media Article: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-06/australian-data-may-be-compromised-
in-pageup-security-breach/9840048
2. Perspective 1: Professional Ethics
Professional ethics is one of the perspectives of applied ethics and is widely used in ICT
(Information and Communication Technology) as most of the cyber ethical dilemma arises in the
professional area of the business, organizations, companies, and in websites. Floridi, Sanders
(2010, P.7) states that there is not much difference between the cyber ethics and other
professional ethics like engineering ethics, business ethics, and medical ethics. The objectives of
cyber ethics are to create the ethically-minded professional and not an ethicist. The cyber issues
arise mainly due to the ignorance of IT professionals in the designing and controlling of software
and hardware computer system.
From the media article “PageUp Data Breach”, the data breach occurred in the several companies
that come under the website PageUp and thousands of Australian people have compromised
with their personal information. PageUp is a company that provides HR software provision to the
biggest companies of Australia in the banking and retail sector and has more than two million
active workers in the 190 countries. The major companies that are associated with PageUp are
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Reserve Bank of Australia, NAB, Lindt, Telstra, Kmart, Jetstar, Medibank, Linfox, Australia Post,
Officeworks, and Coles. Among these companies, some have used the software of PageUp to
provide recruitment while some used for HR information such as bank details, salary information,
and other personal information. So those companies who provide the only job does not suffer
much from this data breach but other suffers great loss. This data breach happened in the month
of May 2018 and first noticed the unusual activity on 23rd May in the IT department of PageUp
company. A malicious code has been injected into the system of PageUp software and criminals
gets access to breach the personal and professional information of the clients associated with the
company. The Department of Attorney-General said that some departments of the Australian
Government also tangled in this data breach. The professional life of the clients has been affected
by the data breach in the software of PageUp company. Collste (2012) says that the “professional
ethics is the ethics of one’s professional life or ethics of work and it can be defined as the actions
affected by the ethical dilemmas”. In the case of ICT (Information and Communication
Technology), cyber issues have affected the professional life and result in the services performed.
ACSC (Australian Cyber Security Centre) and the computer emergency retort team of Australia
was working on with the company PageUp by taking help from the professional approach of the
perspective of professional ethics to investigate the security breach.
Different ethical norms are generated from the different parts of the specialized relations and
produce the general ethical summary of the profession. Professional ethics has many benefits,
that’s why it is used in identifying and analyzing the data breach occur in the PageUp company
which is identified from the media article. It seriously takes the cyber issues and finds the solution
to stops such dilemmas and avoid these kinds of risks. The primary result of the professional
ethics is to elaborate and adopt the codes and regulations of ICT, Florida, Sanders (2010).
3. Perspective 2: Philosophical Ethics
Philosophical ethics has a different perspective from the professional ethics, although both are
used in identifying and analyzing the ethical dilemma. According to Darwall, philosophical ethics
is standardly separated into two parts, one is normative ethics and other is meta-ethics. Does
meta-ethics concern the questions like what are the consequences? And what can mark it the
situation that we ought to do something? While the normative ethics concerns the questions like
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what has consequences? And what are ethical duties? The philosophical ethics examines the
ethical dilemma in a systematic manner and try to achieve the insight into what is happening and
obligatory.
As explained in the normative ethics of philosophical ethics, it was the moral duty of the
Australian Government and ACSC (Australian Cyber Security Centre) to protect the companies
from such kind of cyber ethical dilemma, to minimize such cyber activities and provide security to
them if such attack happens. But the head of the ACSC organization said that they failed to secure
from this data breach and did not identify what exactly it was after notifying by the PageUp
company. They just recommended the clients to amend their passwords.
Archie, Archie (2003) defines the philosophical ethics as virtue ethics that investigates the set of
queries arises like how the dilemma happens? and how to reduce it? Companies that have
suffered from the data breach tried to solve this issue using virtue ethics which is a part of
philosophical ethics. Medibank, one of the associated company with the PageUp software had
adjourned its jobs webpages when identified the data breach of PageUp and determined whether
its data has been conceded or not. The company Australian Red Cross stopped the recruitment
system of PageUp as they suspect the data breach. While other companies had blocked all
connections to the HR system of the PageUp software for sometimes.
4. Perspective 3: Sociological Ethics
Sociological ethics is another perspective of the applied ethics and its main concern is
confidentiality, security, and privacy. According to Heilbroner (2012), sociology is built on the
supposition that one belongs to the group. A sociological theory is actually the methodical
explanation of social arrangements, relationships, and procedures and ethical dilemma effect the
social life. Using some tools, the ethical dilemma of information and communication technology
that occurs can be solved. From the chosen media article “PageUp Data Breach”, the social life of
many clients has affected as their personal information like bank details, home address, phone
numbers, tax file numbers, and driving license numbers. While in other cases, those clients who
applied for the job recruitment and were not successful in getting a job have provided only
limited information such as email address and name.
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Ulman (2015), stated that the idea of perspective social ethics has been projected to provide the
themes of social society, international governance, and supportable human progress in order to
achieve the need of long-term prophecy of the requirements. In the ethical dilemma of ICT
(Information and Communication), the role of perspective sociological ethics is to provide the
long-term idea of the security from such kinds of data breaches and cyber dilemmas. In the media
article “PageUp Data Breach”, to secure from the more data loss of personal information of the
clients that are using the companies associated with the PageUp software, the ACSC (Australian
Cyber Security Centre) have ceased and block the use of all system of PageUp software as a
proactive step. They also suggested to all clients who had applied at the company site to the job
position in last few days or months to check their account details and make sure that no unusual
activity arose regarding their personal information during the process of employment. The
impact of cyber dilemmas like data breaches, cyber-attacks can be better understood with the
help of sociological ethics because they provide the real and actual practices and response to the
ethical issues. The agencies of the Australian government take help from the perspective of
sociological ethics and manage the security of these types of cyber ethical dilemma. For this, they
should promote the security awareness by organizing public affairs and should aware them about
the unusual activities if arises and how to suspect them. The companies should incorporate the
theories like philosophical ethics, professional ethics, and sociological ethics to avoid the
happening of unusual activities in the future. By promoting such campaigns, the chances of cyber
dilemmas can be minimized.
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References
Archie L., Archie J. G. (2003) Introduction to Ethical Studies. Retrieved from
https://philosophy.lander.edu/ethics/ethicsbook.pdf
Collste G. (2012) Applied and Professional Ethics. Retrieved from
http://web.usm.my/kajh/vol19_1_2012/kajh19_1_2012_2.pdf
Darwall, S. Philosophical Ethics. Retrieved from
https://campuspress.yale.edu/stephendarwall/philosophical-ethics/
Floridi L., Sanders J.W. (2010) Computer Ethics: Mapping the Foundationalist Debate. Retrieved
from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.21.246&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Heilbroner R. (2012) A SOCIAL ETHICS APPROACH TO SOCIAL PROBLEMS. Retrieved from
https://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/60850.pdf
Media Article: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-06/australian-data-may-be-compromised-
in-pageup-security-breach/9840048
Ulman Y. I. (2015) Social Ethics. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275654052_Social_Ethics
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