Ethical Issues In Information Security

It is undeniable fact that nowadays information plays a major role in supporting an organiza-tion’s business operations and facilitating all kind of processes in order to be achieved a competi-tive advantage (Posthumus and von Solms, 2004). Thus, information security has always been an essential key piece of the organizational management. As a systematic process, the goal of infor-mation security management is to adequately handle information security risks in the organiza-tion. While information is valuable and critical to all kind of companies, it is also vulnerable to a variety of threats from both inside and outside of the business structure. Such attacks could be: hackers, viruses, data leakage, etc. All the security risks may bring actual

Philip Brey says that “Ethics is a field of study that is concerned with distinguishing right from wrong, and good from bad. It analyses the morality of human behaviours, policies, laws and social structures. Ethicists attempt to justify their moral judgments by reference to ethical principles of theories that attempt to capture our moral intuitions about what is right and wrong.” In the 1980s the ethical analysis of security and privacy issues in information technology has undergone a serious upswing (Johnson, 2001). The reason is that some of the employees often have access to classified information about individuals' and companies' frameworks and systems. This power could be misused, either deliberately or ac-cidentally. Many associations for IT professionals have started to address the ethical side of the employment. However there is no prerequisite for IT staff to bind with the rules that these associa-tions impose. Computer ethics analyses moral obligations of IT experts and computer users and is putting emphasis on the ethical issues in public policy for information technology development and use. The main inquiries are if is wrong for corporations to read employee’s e-mail or if it is morally reasonable for the end users to copy a software. Questions like putting disputable or por-nographic content online without

This is possible if there are col-laborative efforts in the company. (Werlinger et al., 2009). The next level in the organizations is all other employees. In the same literature, it is advised that they should be well informed for the possible security threats, as well as security basics and literacy. All relevant groups in the organi-zation should be provided with sufficient training and supporting reference materials to allow them to protect information assets effectively (Straub, 1998). Information security management (ISM) is a complicated process that should be deployed from top to down. It involves technical IT resources and operations. The ability to implement and utilize information technologies with the right competencies can facilitate the organization to apply the security measures in the most effi-cient manner (Chang, 2011). In order to support organization’s goals in the continuous improve-ment, the causes of unsatisfactory performance should be identified and this can happen through the number of ISM’s convenient approaches. Preventing the information security attacks is a daily challenge that many organizations face (Karyda, Kiountouzis & Kokolakis, 2005). According to Winkler and Dealay (1995), companies spend a lot