RI Advice Case: Exploring Ethics and Cybersecurity Legal Issues

This case study delves into the ethical dimensions of cybersecurity, focusing on the RI Advice case where a failure in cybersecurity systems led to a data breach. The analysis highlights the ethical issues related to harm, privacy, and security, referencing the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. It emphasizes the importance of preventing harm, respecting privacy, adhering to professional rules, and implementing robust security systems. The study further explores how ethical issues in such cases should be communicated effectively to ensure timely detection and resolution of cybersecurity breaches, advocating for professional communication in written form. This document is available on Desklib, where students can access a wealth of academic resources, including past papers and solved assignments, to support their learning journey.

Ethics

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
Cyber security..............................................................................................................................3
Case..............................................................................................................................................3
How case relates to ethics (ACM) its principles which explains the ethical issues....................4
Ethical issues in case in detail.....................................................................................................5
How to communicate about ethical issues in relevant and useful way........................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
The information technology mainly provides basis for study and also extends to such
practices which incorporate the information technologies. It refers to as the contemporary
technology which is to be assessed and includes cloud computing, layer communication,
electronic discovery, electronic outsourcing and many others. The artificial intelligence has seen
the massive growth in this decade but it is subject to ethics which mainly ensures that the
artificial intelligence of an entity or company maintains the human dignity and does not involve
in something which can cause harm to the people (Kirkpatrick and Weikle, 2018). This PPT shall
cover about the ethical issues which pertains in the cybersecurity by referring to a case.
TASK
Cyber security
The cybercrimes and security has been the most serious challenges which is being faced
by the people in today’s era with the significant implication for each sector of modern global
economy. The organizations, individuals as well as nation states uses the breach of computer
networks in order to commit the crimes such as data theft, insider trading, phishing and many
others. Hacking is also on the top nowadays wherein the unauthorised third party takes access to
the computer networks of the company, individual or the nation state. Cyber security can be
referred to as a practice of defending the computers, mobile devices, servers, networks,
electronic systems and the data from the malicious attacks.
Case
In the case of ASIC v. RI Advice, ASIC have announced that it will commence the
proceedings in Federal court against RI Advice, the licence holder of Australian Financial
Services which mainly focused on the retirement advice but failed to have the adequate cyber
security system. It was alleged by ASIC that the company was subject to the brute force attack
wherein the malicious user gained the remote access successfully to the Frontier’s service and
have spent more than 155 hours being logged in. As a result, the hacker was able to access the
sensitive information of client which included the identification documents (Neeman and
Shaffstall, 2018). ASIC have alleged that this has been the result of failure of RI to implement
such system, resources and polices which are appropriate reasonably to manage the risk in
relation to cyber security as well as cyber resilience. The company alleged that there was no

compromise with the client data through breaches and the allegations put on by ASIC are general
but also appears in relation to small number of cyberattacks of such nature which is not faced
commonly by Australian businesses. The report from the ASIC have found that the management
and awareness of the risk of cybersecurity were improving in the financial market of Australia
but there is room for the improvement still in this sector. The organizations are alert to the threats
of cybersecurity and are also focused in such efforts and resources which improves cybersecurity
governance, recovery, resources capabilities.
How case relates to ethics (ACM) its principles which explains the ethical issues.
The code of ethics is the set of standards which is designed mainly to encourage the higher
standards of the behaviour and the professionalism for the financial advisor. The code of ethics
now establishes the 12 high level standards for the financial advisers in order to meet. The ACM
code of ethics and professional conduct mainly expresses conscience of profession, its principles
which relates to case includes the following-
 Preventing harm which means the negative consequences which is unjust and can provide
mental or physical injury or disclosure of information, unjustified destruction, etc.
 Respect the privacy which means that the technology has enabled collection, monitoring
as well as exchange of the personal information in a quick manner. Therefore, it must
have understanding of the rights and responsibilities which is associated with use and
collection of personal information.
 The company must know and respect the existing rules which pertains to professional
work. The rules include the regulations and law, policies and the procedures of company
to which the profession belongs. The companies must abide to these rules unless they
have compelling ethical justification for not abiding to it (Rentz and et. al., 2021).
 Design as well as implement the system which is usually and robustly security as the
breach of the cybersecurity may cause the harm. The robust security must be the primary
consideration when implementing and designing the system. The computing
professionals must perform with due diligence in order to ensure that the system
functions as intended and appropriate actions are taken in order to secure the resources
against the intentional and accidental misuse, denial, modification of services

Ethical issues in case in detail
In the case discussed, there are many ethical issues which have been identified which
includes the following-
 The first relates to the harm caused to the sensitive information being stored of the clients
in the system of RI advice. The company does not have the proper system of storing data
and no policies are farmed in order to manage it., so it is one of the biggest ethical issue
in this case.
 The second one is about the robust system which is not being built in the company which
helps in securing the information of the company in secure manner. due to absence of any
system and policy in the company to protect the data from breach of the cybersecurity,
the company have experienced the hacking of its system for more than 155 hours wherein
the malicious user has accessed the sensitive information of client including the
identification documents. This is breach of cyber security (Zeller, 2021).
 The company has failed to respect the privacy of its client has it has failed to manage
such system which can collect, monitor and exchange the personal information of client.
How to communicate about ethical issues in relevant and useful way
It is very important to communicate the ethical issues pertaining to a case in a
relevant as well as useful manner so that early detection of breach is identified. These issues may
be communicated via professional communication which must be in written form.
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from this PPT that there is significant growth in the use of technology in
every business sector which helps in easy and quick functioning of business practices but which
benefits, there are many issues such as ethical which affect the working of business. The ACM
code of ethics provides different ethical principles which must be adhered in every business
which includes avoiding harms, respecting privacy, building the robust system to secure personal
information and many others.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Kirkpatrick, M.S. and Weikle, D., 2018, February. Active Learning Strategies for Integrating the
ACM Code of Ethics into CS Courses. In Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical
Symposium on Computer Science Education (pp. 1062-1062).
Neeman, A. and Shaffstall, J., 2018. Engaging the core: ACM social and professional issues
made easy via mobile security. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 34(1), pp.8-
16.
Rentz, Z., and et. al., 2021, March. Before You Write Code... Putting Data and Ethics at the
Center of Introductory Computing. In Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical
Symposium on Computer Science Education (pp. 1353-1353).
Zeller, M., 2021. An Interview with Dr. Michael Zeller, Winner of ACM SIGKDD 2020 Service
Award. ACM SIGKDD Explorations Newsletter, 22(2), pp.6-7.