Ethical Dilemma Using Det Technique Assessment Answer

The Scenario

The Incident

The incident that is discussed here was reported by the news website (https://www.dailydot.com/debug/digital-identity-social-engineering-hack). The news article titled as “What it feels like to lose control of your entire digital identity” was published on 4^th June (What it feels like to lose control of your entire digital identity, 2016). The incident describes the experience of Doug Haslam who was a marketing coonsultant, whose digital identity was hacked by someone.

Doug Haslam was a marketing consultant whose Google and twitter account was hacked by an attacker. The attackers not only hacked his account but socially engineered access to his phone number. The attackers have taken control over his Google and Twitter account, and there they were able to access the data inside it. 

Performing DET on the Article

What is going on?

Doug Haslam, who was a marketing consultant, uses his Google account for his work. Some of the attacker have hacked his Google and Twitter account and thereby got the access over the information. They not only hacked his accounts but also have his phone number (What it feels like to lose control of your entire digital identity, 2016).  Due to this, he is locked out of his account. Finally twitter re-establish his account but refused to give back his username.

What are the facts?

Doug Haslam uses his Google account for sending mails to his clients regarding business transaction. His Google as well as Twitter account has been hacked by some of the attackers (What it feels like to lose control of your entire digital identity, 2016). Due to this all his personal details including name, profile picture has been hacked by the attackers. The attackers also have his phone number as a result they traces all his calls as well as emails that he send to his clients for the business purpose.

The hackers have the access over all his information including personal, business related and financial. He is locked out of his account and finally Twitter reinstated his account but refused to give back his username, which he was using from last 10 years. Due to the hacking of his Google account, the hackers have misused the information that is related with his business. Some of his confidential marketing transactions have been revealed by the attackers (Coleman, 2013). 

What are the Ethical and Non- Ethical Issues?

Doug Haslam account has been hacked and the hackers have access over both his personal and financial data including the transaction. Due to this, the organization where he was working suffered a lot (Henwood et al., 2016).This is because all the transactional data as well as confidential data of the clients have been hacked by the attackers (Craig & Shackelford, 2014). Doug Haslam personal data including his phone number have been hacked. At last, when Twitter reinstated his account, they refused to give back his user name, which he was using from the last 10 years. This incident is one of the most ethical issues as Doug Haslam not only loses his control over the digital identity but also his work-life gets affected due to the revelation of the transactional information of his workplace.

Ethical hacking can be done in order to prevent cybercrime. The organizations use hacking process in order to detect the persons who are engaged in hacking or related with unethical issue in the organization (Kota et al., 2014). Ethical Hacking is very much advantageous. Phone call are traced in order to get all the information or for avoiding issues related with business.

Who is Affected?

Doug Haslam gets affected as all his personal data including phone number have been hacked. Some of the confidential data and emails of his clients were misused by the attackers. The transactional data related to his workplace was revealed as a result revenue of the business got affected.

What are the Ethical Issues and Implications?

Hacking of Google and Twitter account by the attackers is one of the most ethical issues as both the financial and personal data of the Doug Haslam have been hacked (Park, 2014).  Personal and transactional data of clients have been revealed which affected the business of the organization.

What can be done about it?

The developers of social applications must implement strict rules and regulations so that they can provide facility of access to their registered users only (Lee, 2016). No other users can access the data or information of another user.

What are the Options?

There are various options in order to reduce the ethical dilemma related to the incident.  The most important step is that Google and Twitter must use strict laws and regulation so that unethical access of data can be avoided by the attackers or hackers (Marcum  et al., 2014).The Company must adopt such software such that its lost data can be retrieved properly.

Which Option is Best and Why?

The best option is that Google and Twitter must use strict laws and regulation so that unethical access of data can be avoided by the hackers (O'Loughlin et al., 2013).

Conclusion

The application of doing ethics technique on the selected article has helped in understanding the ethical issue by this incident. The hackers have used some renowned social networking sites for effectively hacking and extracting information and data. The outcomes from this analysis have helped in knowing about the several choices and developed methods of solution from the hacking issue.

References

Coleman, E. G. (2013). Coding freedom: The ethics and aesthetics of hacking. Princeton University Press.

Craig, A., & Shackelford, S. (2014). Hacking the planet, the dalai lama, and you: managing technical vulnerabilities in the Internet through polycentric governance. Fordham Intellectual Property, Media & Entertainment Law Journal, 24, 381.

Henwood, R., Patten, G., Barnett, W., Hwang, B., Metcalf, C., Hacking, D., & Wilkinson, L. (2016). Acceptability and use of a virtual support group for HIV-positive youth in Khayelitsha, Cape Town using the MXit social networking platform. AIDS care, 1-6.

Kota, R., Schoohs, S., Benson, M., & Moreno, M. A. (2014). Characterizing cyberbullying among college students: Hacking, dirty laundry, and mocking.Societies, 4(4), 549-560.

Lee, J. (2016). Growth Hacking for Startups: How Growth Hacking can utilised for growing startups.

Marcum, C. D., Higgins, G. E., Ricketts, M. L., & Wolfe, S. E. (2014). Hacking in high school: cybercrime perpetration by juveniles. Deviant behavior, 35(7), 581-591.

O'Loughlin, K., Hacking, K. A., Simmons, N., Christian, W., Syahanee, R., Shamekh, A., & Prince, N. J. (2013). Paediatric unplanned reattendance rate: A&E clinical quality indicators. Archives of disease in childhood, archdischild-2012.

Park, D. W. (2014). Analysis on Mobile Forensic of Smishing Hacking Attack. Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering, 18(12), 2878-2884.

What it feels like to lose control of your entire digital identity. (2016). The Daily Dot. Retrieved 12 August 2016, from https://www.dailydot.com/debug/digital-identity-social-engineering-hack