CS5052 Professional Issues, Ethics and Computer Law

Introduction

Information security can be referred to as the set of distinct practices that are intended in keeping the data safe and secured from all types of unauthorized and unauthenticated accessibility or alterations, while being transmitted or stored in one particular machine (Moody, Siponen and Pahnila 2018). The fundamental principles for information security include CIA or confidentiality, integrity and availability. Each of these elements of the information security aspect should be designed for achieving these principles.

Hence, data breach or cyber security incidents are avoided in a successful manner and the respective steps would be undertaken for better and effective execution of all processes and operations. A data analyst has the major responsibility to ensure that confidential data would be safe and secured and an ethical approach is needed to be considered for working professionally, legally and ethically (Steinbart et al. 2018). The following essay outlines a brief discussion on the ethical approach for data security and process to resolve the ethical dilemma.

Professional and Ethical Issues

Information security is needed to be managed and maintained by a data analyst. The data analyst is responsible for scrutinizing information with the help of data analysis tools and techniques. The raw data is needed to be analyzed for proper and effective results and hence maintaining data sensitivity on top level priority (Cram, Proudfoot and D’arcy 2017). The most distinct duties of data analyst involve utilization of the most advanced computerized models for extracting the required data. However, a fresh IT graduate as a data analyst might face some of the major and the most distinct issues related to data security and confidentiality, integrity, privacy and availability attributes are being faced (Smith 2019).

The most significant issues that are extremely common for information security and confidentiality include malware, ransomware, spyware, virus, Emotet, phishing, denial of service, SQL injection, password attacks, man in the middle attacks and many more (Haqaf and Koyuncu 2018). There are some of the major as well as the most distinct professional issues that are needed to be considered for the data analyst related to data management are provided below:

iii) Privacy: The final type of professional issue that can be possible is data privacy or data availability. The data analyst requires to ensure that the data could not be accessed by the unauthorized or unauthenticated users. Moreover, this specific data analyst also requires to ensure that it could be accessed by those members, who are comprising of subsequent permissions (Stewart and Jürjens 2017). It is required to ensure that data privacy as well as availability is referring to matching network or different computing resources to the data volume accessibility that is highly expected and even deployment of a proper backup policy for the purpose of disaster recovery.

The ethical issues, on the contrary, for information security include confidentiality and privacy, piracy, fraud and misuse, liability as well as patent and copyright law. The improper utilization of IT could create issues for the employees and the organization and various hackers can gain access to the credit card information and hence leading to the financial losses for the owners of the financial cards (Allhoff and Henschke 2018). These mentioned ethical issues can be responsible for involving several cyber threats and crimes like identity theft, copyright infringement, click fraud, hacking and advance fee fraud, which is extremely common for the aspect of information security.

Analysis

The ethical issues related to the three aspects of information security of confidentiality, integrity and privacy are required to be analyzed and considered for better and effective solutions and hence gain maximum competitive benefits and advantages accordingly (Royakkers et al. 2018). The inclusion of information security policy would be extremely beneficial and ensuring that these policies provide a subsequent guidance to the organizational decisions regarding procuring cyber security tools and even mandating behaviors and responsibilities of employees of the organization.

Encryption, authentication, passwords and also defense against various penetration attacks are major techniques that are designed for ensuring confidentiality. The major checksums could help in verifying data integrity like frequent backups and version control software helping to restore the data to an accurate format, whenever required. Integrity even considers the aspect of non-repudiation and the respective data analyst would be capable of proving that the respective data analyst has maintained the integrity of the data, mainly for the legal contexts (Thomas et al. 2017). Hence, the impact of different illegal aspects like hacking or malicious data access is reduced and the organizational management is benefitted without any error or complexity. The security errors are also needed to be focused on for better and effective solutions and hence new attributes are needed to be included accordingly (Mandal 2018).

Information security principles are needed to be made for better emphasis and also assessed to gain the most efficient results. The ethical analysis and security is needed to be focused for involving an access control policy for determining the individuals having an accessibility to the data and the process to establish the rights accurately. It would ensure that the decision making process is extremely effective and new practices are considered for reducing the negative effects successfully (Wellman and Rajan 2017). Moreover, the ethical issues like patents and copyright laws are needed to be emphasized, so that the moral principles are quite effective and the professional standards are being focused on. It is also needed to be considered that the IT security professionals like data analysts are conducting a cyber security risk assessment for security purposes and eradicating all ethical issues.

Reflection and Challenges

I am a fresh graduate and has been hired as a data analyst in one of the most reputed organizations in the IT industry. Being, the data analyst, it is my responsibility to ensure that I am focusing on the new and vital aspects of data security and privacy on top level priority and am able to secure and deal with the confidential data accordingly. It is needed to work professionally and ethically with the confidential data, so that my organization is free from all types of data breaches and data security issues and challenges. However, I have faced a few distinct and noteworthy challenges in dealing with the sensitive data in my organization and these mainly include data tampering, data theft and eavesdropping, falsification of users’ identities, password related threats, unauthenticated accessibility to the data rows and columns, lack of accountability and even complicated users’ management requirements.

As a result, the data management aspects would be extremely difficult and the organizational management would not be able to gain accessibility and availability successfully. I would have to ensure that an ethical approach is followed, under every circumstance and the organization would be able to follow different aspects for data security as well as information security. Since I have been appointed as the data analyst, one of the major and the most significant ethical issue would be lack of data access right.

The respective individuals might not be having authorization for accessing the data; however he or she would access it. This particular incident can be termed as responsible for focusing on the information rights and obligations as well as accountability and control. The lack of implementation of ethical theories and processes in the organization would be termed as another vital ethical issue that can impact on the decision making process and data privacy would be focused on. Hence, this could also be a vital challenge for me for working as a data analyst in the organization of IT industry.

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above discussion, a conclusion can be drawn that an ethical approach is needed to be focused on information security. There are various methodologies and procedures that are successfully designed and implemented for securing print, electronic and other format of sensitive and private information from misuse and disclosure or destruction as well as disruption of the services within the organization.

Hence, the ethical approach is needed to be focused on for better aspects and attributes. The above provided essay has properly described about the ethical approach considered by a data analyst to reduce the issues of data security and the involvement of suitable factors for ethical dilemma. Ethical theories are needed to be focused on for better results and high level of integrity. Encryption and authentication are considered for data security and following an ethical approach successfully.

References

Allhoff, F. and Henschke, A., 2018. The internet of things: Foundational ethical issues. Internet of Things, 1, pp.55-66.

Cram, W.A., Proudfoot, J.G. and D’arcy, J., 2017. Organizational information security policies: a review and research framework. European Journal of Information Systems, 26(6), pp.605-641.

Diesch, R., Pfaff, M. and Krcmar, H., 2020. A comprehensive model of information security factors for decision-makers. Computers & Security, 92, p.101747.

Haqaf, H. and Koyuncu, M., 2018. Understanding key skills for information security managers. International Journal of Information Management, 43, pp.165-172.

Mandal, P.C., 2018. Capturing marketing information and marketing intelligence: ethical issues and concerns. International Journal of Business Forecasting and Marketing Intelligence, 4(1), pp.99-110.

Moody, G.D., Siponen, M. and Pahnila, S., 2018. Toward a unified model of information security policy compliance. MIS quarterly, 42(1).

Royakkers, L., Timmer, J., Kool, L. and van Est, R., 2018. Societal and ethical issues of digitization. Ethics and Information Technology, 20(2), pp.127-142.

Smith, R.E., 2019. Elementary information security. Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Steinbart, P.J., Raschke, R.L., Gal, G. and Dilla, W.N., 2018. The influence of a good relationship between the internal audit and information security functions on information security outcomes. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 71, pp.15-29.

Stewart, H. and Jürjens, J., 2017. Information security management and the human aspect in organizations. Information & Computer Security.

Thomas, D.R., Pastrana, S., Hutchings, A., Clayton, R. and Beresford, A.R., 2017, November. Ethical issues in research using datasets of illicit origin. In Proceedings of the 2017 Internet Measurement Conference (pp. 445-462).

Wellman, M.P. and Rajan, U., 2017. Ethical issues for autonomous trading agents. Minds and Machines, 27(4), pp.609-624.

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