M.I.S. Initial Draft - Ethical and Security Issues in Development of Business Systems

8/4/2019 M.I.S. Initial Draft - Ethical and Security Issues in Development of Business Systems

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Initial draft – Report on Security and Ethical issues in Development of Business Systems

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Introduction

Within legal boundaries, what you say and do in the privacy of your own home is your business.

Particularly when it comes to digital information, that privacy and moral flexibility does not extend

to the workplace. Common sense dictates that your actions in a public place are no longer

private. People by nature consider their surroundings before saying or doing something that

would embarrass them or offend others. When it comes to the workplace, the burden of

maintaining a politically and morally correct environment falls on the employer as well as the

employee. Apart from that, we are also discussing the threats in against and in defense needed

for the performance and security of the business information systems, as well as their societal

impacts and ethical implications of information technology, which also includes the slight change

into the job description of business managers and business professionals, where they not only

have to manage the business related matters but also be able to utilize the successful uses of the

information technologies in a global environment and scenario(s) .

Why technology for business managers?

By using the term successful use of the informational technologies and certain other gadgets, we

mean how they apply themselves to comply with newer technologies, with respect to their

managerial activities and how they’ll be reducing the cost and increasing the efficiency level of

both employers, and business organization, because in this era only those organizations are

getting successful and become a bluefish, which opt for latest technology at the right place at right

time, because it let them reducing the cost of production/services by efficiently utilizing their

available resources.

Technology, should it or should it not?There’s no question that the appliance of latest technology has brought many easiness in

business matters and has had beneficial results as well, but as well as the detrimental effects on

the society which gives rise to the security and ethical issues regarding invasion of privacy and

certain other issues in significant ways, that’s why in this report, we’re mostly concerned with

several ethical issues regarding the use and application of information & technologies while

affecting the employment, individuality, working environment and conditions, privacy factor and

invasion of privacy, areas of crime and criminal activities such as cyber crimes etc, health and

several other issues with their solutions to societal problem(s ).

In the digital age, the record of an the discussion can be important. If an employee views a

website that another employee finds offensive, the record of that site visit can become hard

evidence in a court of law. It's an attorney's dream to build a case with such evidence. Because

the employee was not only at the workplace when the offence took place, but using the

employer's equipment to commit the offense both will be held liable for the action. Only

unambiguous evidence of the fact that the employee clearly understood stated rules against such

conduct will limit the employer's liability. Employers can also seek to limit the content that is




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available to the employees, but this can be an even heavier burden. Determining which content to

block and how to effectively block may represent an overwhelming task. The censorship of

information will pose a difficult ethical situation for an employer. In addition, blocking unwanted

content while still maintaining open access to the Internet can be virtually impossible. The

appropriate use of digital communications such as email and text messaging is another area that

must be clearly understood by the employee and it is the employer's responsibility to set the

guidelines. Many employees need to be taught that text based communications can be more

often misinterpreted than spoken communications because other verbal and body language cues

are not present. An offhand remark while both parties are laughing can have a markedly different

connotation when viewed as an email message on a bad day. It is also necessary for the

employee to understand that once the email is sent, there is little control over who else sees it.

And again, there is a digital record of this communication that lasts far longer than the spoken

word. In this digital age, it is the responsibility employers to guide their employees on the proper

use of information systems. Without such guidance, the workplace can become an offensive

atmosphere with significant ethical and legal consequences for the employer.

Apart from that we’re also concerned with several types of security management precedence, and

strategies with their defense theories, which explains how these can be used in order to ensure

the security concerns of business related applications related to information technologies.

Although in this report, we are not only concerned with putting light onto the problems, business

organizations face with regards to information systems and information technologies regarding

security and ethical grounds, we also tried our level best to put give some proposed suggestions,

which we feel can reduced the effect of the security and ethical concerns for business

requirements and environments, which is the main criteria of compilation of this report, because

we feel that with every problem, there should be some solutions to them so that challenges faced

by the business organizations can be reduced and/or minimized to a certain extend.

Our responsibilities as business professionals

Risk and business are said to have a side-by-side relationship, therefore as business

professionals, we should always remember that there’s risk in every step we take which we

always have to have at the back of our minds, apart from that responsibility also falls onto our

shoulders to promote ethical usage of information technology whether at the work place, which

includes proper performance of our roles as the vital human resource in the business systems,

which could help us enabling and developing your skills in the organization, as being a managerof business professional it’d be our responsibility to make decisions about business activities and

the use of information technologies/gadgets which can pose a direct or an indirect security cum

ethical threat.

Several security and ethical instances

For instance; you tend to record all business activities of your organization but on the same time,

you’re creating privacy and ethical problems for your workforce, in compiling records of their




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private made phone-calls or emails, which could be made either to the supplier or a manufacturer

who could be a close friend of yours, so in that case, you won’t be talking with him in serious and

formal tone, but because there’s record keeping procedure going on, the employee might get into

some sense of uncomfortable mode.

The only way such situations can be handled is can be having mutual understand andcommunication between higher and lower personnel and on the same time, a simultaneous

horizontal and vertical communication between the masses so that a mutual understanding can

be made between both ends.

Situation in Pakistan

Even in Pakistan, we experience such cases where branded computer systems which are

imported to Pakistan, at times do come with software with legal and valid license keys,

which includes operating systems that includes such information like the person’s name

and other information on the barcodes, because of which a user in Pakistan is privileged

to use a legal software on the name of other person who lives thousands of miles away

from him.

Situation for a home user

Similar is the case when it comes to networking with portable devices where most of the

data is transferred through wireless medium like WIFI and Bluetooth, which can be easily

extracted in-between (by in-between we mean between sender and the receiver) ,

therefore a person with a technical mind would not suggest sharing vulnerable, precious,

or confidential data or information on a fragile medium. There have been such instances,

that a person was able to decode a WIFI device password in neighbor and started using

internet using that account, that’s also ethical and moral issue which should be addressed

on large scale.

Public Places

This was on micro level, when it comes to macro level, when in an organization like

banks, airports, railway stations, coffee shops etc which are referred to as public arenas,

and therefore sharing your valuable and/or confidential data like your passwords or credit

card numbers, on that scale is not recommended because it can easily be extracted and

can be used in terrorists or spamming purpose. That’s why in places like mentioned

above are not recommended places to share personal data.

Ethical problems in organizations

On the other hand, organizations do emphasize with their employees not to store their

passwords, credit card numbers, and software license keys (when it comes to system

administrators) on organization’s network, and if they’ve account of some sort i.e. email




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addresses, bank account etc, their passwords should be different from the ones they use

in the in organization when they access organization’s network like intranet etc.

Similar is the case when organizations outsource just to cut-out their cost, but it also

overheads private and confidential data of their organization which can include the data of

their consumer base, to the third party, which is the risk organizations take when theyoutsource, although there’s a legal obligation in contracting the terms but still there’s not

certainty of any kind that the information can’t be forwarded ahead.

Ethical Dilemma on micro level like students in educational institutions

Even in school, colleges and universities where websites like Facebook, MySpace, Orkut,

and Google+ are prohibited to be used by the students within institution jurisdiction, but

still there have been many cases that pupil bypass such proxies by different software and

gadgets (gadgets like USB stick, or portable wireless modem and connecting

through the internet on that medium ) to view them, which also creates an ethical

dilemma, by violating the internet usage policy of the institution.

In a nutshell

In a nutshell, we can say that Information is a source of power and, increasingly, the key to

prosperity among those with access to it. Consequently, developments in information systems

also involve social and political relationships-- and so make ethical considerations in how

information is used all the more important. Electronic systems now reach into all levels of

government, into the workplace, and into private lives to such an extent that even people without

access to these systems are affected in significant ways by them. New ethical and legal decisions

are necessary to balance the needs and rights of everyone. with the advancement of technology,apart from some pros, there have been cons along with, and therefore being a business manager,

it’s our responsibility to tackle with such issues, as they can create problems or some sort for the

organization in near future, as we are concerned with business management, managers do need

themselves to equipped with latest technological knowledge so as to they can have a look into

business activities and can efficiently manage their operations in-office and out-of-the-office

activities, which also enables them to reduce cost and on the other hand allows them to keep note

of the activities in-the-office but on the other hand posed issues like security when you outsource

and ethical problems when you take note of the employees or employers in-office-activities

whether they’re breaching the company’s terms and conditions or not, which can pose such

doubts in one’s mind like invasion of privacy, sharing of personal data when outsourcing ( which

can be sold to third party or can be used in spamming ), or decrypting a limited usage network

into full by means of using proxy’s, hacking, cracking, creating fake serial numbers etc are only

some of the widely experienced social and ethical issues, which we’re going to be discussing

more briefly in the report.

Further, Ethics include moral choices made by individuals in relation to the rest of the community,

standards of acceptable behavior, and rules governing members of a profession. The broad




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issues relating to electronic information systems include control of and access to information,

privacy and misuse of data, and international considerations. All of these extend to electronic

networks, electronic databases, and, more specifically, to geographic information systems.

Specific problems within each of the three areas, however, require slightly different kinds of

ethical decisions.

In continuation we also discussed legal decisions in technical developments. Ethics filling the gap

as people negotiate how use of electronic information should proceed. The following notes define

the broad ethical issues now being negotiated. Since laws deciding some aspects of these issues

have been made, these notes should be read in conjunction with Legal Issues in Electronic

Information Systems.

Further, we’ll also discuss why Electronic networks ARE established as a reliable means of

communication and as a means for exchanging information efficiently! Large networks represent

new sources of power. In order to create reliability and efficiency in communication, networks

were structured so that the movement of information would not depend on --and could not be

controlled by--another person or computer. As a result, the larger networks have become

anarchic. Ordinary people with relatively few resources can communicate ideas and information,

however uncommon, unpopular, or politically sensitive those ideas or information may be, to

millions of other people around the world. No government, no hierarchical system exerting either

repressive or benign influence, not even the simple constraints of time and money, will have quite

the same control they once had over the flow of information as long as the networks operate as

they now do. For some people, the networks therefore contain exciting possibilities; for others

they have become a threatening, even subversive, new presence.

Documents

M.I.S. Initial Draft - Ethical and Security Issues in Development of Business Systems