blaw paper 2-MTP

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School

Southern New Hampshire University *

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Course

BUS-206-T2

Subject

Law

Date

Feb 20, 2024

Type

docx

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Uploaded by ChiefGrousePerson582

The online database of Mountain Top View was breached and customer personal information including names, phone numbers and addresses were accessed. Mountain View Top is a sole proprietorship organization meaning Clare Applewood is the owner and oversees the day to day. The information technology lead corrected the code that caused the breach but did not inform the owner of the company Clare Applewood. In this situation because customer’s personal information was stolen Clare should have been notified immediately. This situation should have been handled very different by the information technology lead. They should have looked at the ethical and the law side of the situation. “Ethics is the study and practice of what is good and right, and the laws are the rules and regulations set by the authorities.” (Kubasek,2020) Ethics are the driving force when it comes to decision making. Business Ethics is the approach of ethics to help solve problems experienced by a business. Law and business ethics pretty much go hand and hand in this day and age. When decisions are made unethically most likely the act is illegal as well. Corporate social responsibility is the responsibility of the firms of doing business within a community to meet the expectations that the community imposes on them (Kubasek 2020). From this incident it is important that we evaluate the corporate social responsibility since customers and the community are impacted. In this case customers expect a level of privacy from doing business with Mountain View Top. The incident was unfortunate, but the ethical dilemma came into play when Steve, the information technologist failed to report the incident to Clare. Ethical business practices usually take into account the organizations and customers best interest while obeying the applicable laws. In this incident Steve was not looking out for the best interest of the company or its customers.

After reading about the recent breach Mountain Top View company had, it is obvious there is both ethical and legal issues the company is facing. Steve, the lead information technologist discovered a breach of the customers information on the company’s website. He did not report the incident because he thought it only affected a handful of online shoppers. He corrected the problem by putting business before ethics. Instead, he should have reported the breach right when it happened, and customers should have been informed so they could stop from credit card and identity theft. The people who are affected the most by this breach are the customers and the stakeholders and the owner Clare. Clare, who is the sole proprietor, is liable for all the losses incurred. She also has lost the trust from the customers who were affected along with the people who they will tell about the incident. Mostly the customers whose information was stolen were affected the most. They came to the website thinking that their information was going to be safe like the website states and their addresses, names and phone numbers were stolen. This makes them high risk for their identities being stolen which could cause more issues for Clare in the future. I recommend that Mountain Top View get a team together to prevent and monitor for breaches like this in the future. I think they should have a plan of action of what is to happen if another breach happens including going right to Clare. They need to secure their operations, fix their vulnerabilities, and notify the appropriate parties when necessary. All 50 states have enacted legislation requiring private or governmental entities to notify individuals of security breaches involving personal identifiable information. Secondly, they should alert all customers as to what has happened so they can monitor and make sure their identities are not stolen. I

would also alert the authorities as to what happened as this would be violating the Counterfeit Access Device and Computer Fraud Abuse Act of 1984(Kubasek 2020). This way the company can avoid any non-disclosure lawsuits. The people involved will also be reprimanded as needed to prevent this type of incident from happening again. Altogether, this would be the most ethically and socially responsible thing to do for Mountain Top View. In Conclusion advances in technology in today’s business world can have both legal and ethical implications. For example, shopping for goods and services online, have led to increases in legal and ethical issues for businesses. Most transactions involve the transferring of consumer information including address, name, phone number, credit card information which, is all considered private information. The legal issue with this becomes how well and secure can businesses safeguard customer information against computer hackers/crime. Customer protection should be of the highest priority. From an ethical perspective the business must do what is right for its owners and customers even if it means admitting to information being stolen like in Mountain Top View’s case.

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