Ethical Hacking From Legal Perspective

First Himma’s argues that, to determine if an act of hacktivism is morally justified depends on how much harm is done. Himma’s first premise shows that there is a possibility that some acts of hacktivism potentially can be morally permissible, but often acts labeled as hacktivism are not. For example, a harmful act of hacktivism that should not be considered morally permissible by Himma’s standard was when Sony experienced one of the most impactful hacktivist acts by LulzSec in April, 2011. LulzSec is an anarchist group that came up with an effective strategy of using social media and clever

The purpose of this paper is to touch on the issue of Hacking. It will go into detail about the history, evolution, future and prevention of Hacking. In addition, this paper will discuss different types of hackers and their motivation behind hacking. This paper examines the major impact caused by malicious hackers and give modern examples of such attacks. To conclude, it will predict how hacking will be in the near future and give the precautionary measures Information Security professionals can take to mitigate the risk of being victimized.

As the world becomes ever more involved within the digital realm, it is important to asses acts that may be morally questionable. Such acts like that of a hacker, Hack, and her unauthorized intrusion into a hospital database done purely for personal pleasure. It is my goal to prove that doing so is morally wrong. The proponent of this act, Mickey Soft, lists it as morally permissible for the following reasons:

Security and ethical employees will continue to be a vital aspect of ensuring the success of an organization. There will always be a need for ethical IT security professional as hackers will continue to force organizations to make adjustments in their business models to protect their employees, data and customers. Many organizations and managers believe application security requires simply installing a perimeter firewall, or taking a few configuration measures to prevent applications or operating systems from being attacked. This is a risky misconception. By understanding threats and respect impacts, organizations will be equipped to maintain confidentiality, availability and

Despite Kenneth argues that hacktivism is morally impermissible due to its moral disvalue by referring that hacker are trying to get away from punishment and negatively affect innocent third party, I believe that non-malicious hacktivism is morally permissible. I will attack her points by arguing if the intellectual property rights is unnecessary, there will not be any legitimate punishments. Then from the utilitirism side, I will discuss the moral value or benefits of hacktivism is over its moral disvalue to the whole society.

Almost 90 percent of our society now depends on complex computer based system. With the increasingly use of computer and explosive growth of the Internet has brought many good things: electronic commerce, online banking, e-mail, video conferencing etc. The improvement of systems security to prevent criminal hacker has become an important concern to society. There are many ways to protect those information systems; it seems that the Ethical Hacking is a better way. Therefore, whether to teach or not teach the "Ethical Hacking" as a course in Tertiary education has become an interesting argument. In this article will analysis the ethical, legal, and ethical implications of this issue.

An ethical hacker is a person who performs most of the same activities a cracker does, but with the owner or company’s permission.

In order to properly secure the Information Technology (IT) infrastructure today, there are many different areas that need to be addressed. Each of these areas pose different vulnerabilities and challenges to properly securing an IT environment. By identifying these vulnerabilities, applying controls to address them, and designing a robust security plan the IT infrastructure at WD Enterprises will be more secure and provide better protection against these threats. This plan along with design and application of a code of ethics related to the IT profession, will ensure the staff is held accountable to the standards and objectives of the organization. To accomplish these goals, a review of the organization’s vulnerabilities will be performed followed by suggestions and discussions of the security models that can be used to overcome these risks. Following that, a security plan will be designed along with a code of ethics. These will become the blueprint for securing the IT infrastructure at WD Enterprises.

Ellen Nakashima and Ashkan Soltani (2014), in “ The ethics of Hacking 101” article focus on how ethics is related to teaching hacking. Famous university professors teach their student the principle of hacking but expect from them in return to be ethical in what they do. For example professor Sujeet Shenoi at the university of Tulsa teaches his students on how to hack into oil pipeline and electric power electric plants but won’t accept students into his program unless they promise to work , if hired for the National Security Agency, the Energy Department or another U.S. government agency. David Brumley at Carnegie Mellon University instructs students on how to write software that enable user to hack into networks. George Hotz who made

5- Hacktivism is an ethical hacker unlike normal hackers because it use for the beneficial purposes.

Laws reflect these views. In the United States there are multiple laws that forbid hacking. 18U.S.C § 1029 focuses on the creation, distribution, and use of codes and devices hackers can use to gain unauthorized access to systems, however the way the law is written talks about only the use or creation of the device with the intentions of using it to commit fraud, so a hacker can just claim he was just using it to learn how security systems

“The cyber security landscape has changed in the past couple of years – and not for the better” (Steen, 2013). Banks are faced with attacks to retrieve customer account information, the military battles with attempts to obtain secrets. These attacks are not just committed by induvial hackers but entire countries. Data privacy rules differ from country to country. For example, Fisher, 2014 states individual search engine access is restricted in different ways depending on the country. China along with other countries restrict access to politically sensitive information, while the United States protects the free flow of information (Gonzalez-Padron, 2014). With companies relying more on technology such as cloud computing and virtual storage their level of vulnerability rises. IT personnel have the difficult task of protecting company data, this is why it is vital to have an ethical compliance program in place protect the organization from internal and external threats.

A malicious hacker’s motivation can be money, gain respect or reputation, denial of service, political gain, or for fun (Wilhelm, 2010, p. 65). For the penetration tester, the motivation and purpose is to find vulnerabilities in order to protect the computer systems that a malicious hacker would use to meet their agenda. Penetration testing is commonly referred to as ethical hacking and personnel that conduct penetration tests are also referred to as ethical hackers or white hat hackers (Wilhelm, 2010).

The ethical issues surrounding hacking, stem from several sources mainly dealing with order and control, and information ownership. What is difficult to decipher from all the media hoopla surrounding the terms, "hacker" and "hacking" is both the simultaneous sensationalism and the condemnation of said activities. Of course just recently, even a movie was made and was appropriately called Hackers. The term and all that it implies has truly entered our popular consciousness when Hollywood has made a box office movie on it. As the advancement of computer technologies and systems of information become increasingly more and more complex in today's fast paced modern world and said technologies become an integral

For some individuals, hacking can be a hobby they like to undertake in order to analyze how many computers or the systems they can gain access to. While hacking seems harmless, there are those who do this vice maliciously so that they can get access to customer/ client information, the details of credit cards, their passwords, email addresses and identity fraud (Riem, 2001). Having this unauthorized access to these information warrants an arrest, and should the criminals be found, they are liable for their crimes.