Chapter 8

Protecting People and Information:

Threats and Safeguards
McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2010 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. Define ethics and describe the two factors

that affect how you make a decision
concerning an ethical issue.
2. Define and describe intellectual property,
copyright, Fair Use Doctrine, and pirated
software.
3. Describe privacy and describe ways in which
it can be threatened.
4. Describe the ways in which information on
your computer or network is vulnerable and
list measures you can take to protect it.
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INTRODUCTION

 Handling information responsibly means

understanding the following issues
 Ethics
 Personal privacy
 Threats to information
 Protection of information

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CHAPTER ORGANIZATION

1. Ethics
 Learning Outcomes #1 & #2
2. Privacy
 Learning Outcome #3
3. Security
 Learning Outcome #4

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ETHICS

 Ethics – the principles and standards that

guide our behavior toward other people
 Ethics are rooted in history, culture, and
religion

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Factors the Determine How You
Decide Ethical Issues
 Actions in ethical dilemmas determined by
 Your basic ethical structure
 The circumstances of the situation
 Your basic ethical structure determines what
you consider to be
 Minor ethical violations
 Serious ethical violations
 Very serious ethical violations

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Basic Ethical Structure

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Circumstances of the Situation

1. Consequences of the action or inaction

2. Society’s opinion of the action or inaction
3. Likelihood of effect of action or inaction
4. Time to consequences of action or inaction
5. Relatedness of people who will be affected
by action or inaction
6. Reach of result of action or inaction

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Intellectual Property

 Intellectual property – intangible creative

work that is embodied in physical form
 Copyright – legal protection afforded an
expression of an idea
 Fair Use Doctrine – may use copyrighted
material in certain situations

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Intellectual Property

 Using copyrighted software without

permission violates copyright law
 Pirated software – the unauthorized use,
duplication, distribution, or sale of copyrighted
software

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PRIVACY

 Privacy – the right to left alone when you

want to be, to have control over your own
personal possessions, and not to be
observed without your consent
 Dimensions of privacy
 Psychological: to have a sense of control
 Legal: to be able to protect yourself

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Privacy and Other Individuals

 Key logger (key trapper) software – a program that, when installed

on a computer, records every keystroke and mouse click
 Screen capture programs – capture screen from video card
 E-mail is stored on many computers as it travels from sender to
recipient
 Hardware key logger – hardware device that captures keystrokes
moving between keyboard and motherboard.
 Event Data Recorders (EDR) – located in the airbag control module
and collects data from your car as you are driving.

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An E-Mail is Stored on Many
Computers

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Identity Theft

 Phishing (carding, brand spoofing) – a technique to gain personal

information for the purpose of identity theft
 NEVER
 Reply without question to an e-mail asking for personal information
 Click directly on a Web site provided in such an e-mail

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Pharming

 Pharming - rerouting your request for a

legitimate Web site
 sending it to a slightly different Web address
 or by redirecting you after you are already on the
legitimate site
 Pharming is accomplished by gaining access to
the giant databases that Internet providers use
to route Web traffic.
 It often works because it’s hard to spot the tiny
difference in the Web site address.
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Privacy and Employees

 Companies need information about their

employees to run their business effectively
 As of March 2005, 60% of employers
monitored employee e-mails
 70% of Web traffic occurs during work hours
 78% of employers reported abuse
 60% employees admitted abuse

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Privacy and Employees

 Visiting inappropriate sites

 Gaming, chatting, stock trading, social
networking, etc.

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Reasons for Monitoring

 Hire the best people possible

 Ensure appropriate behavior on the job
 Avoid litigation for employee misconduct

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Privacy and Consumers

 Consumers want businesses to

 Know who they are, but not to know too much
 Provide what they want, but not gather information
on them
 Let them know about products, but not pester
them with advertising

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Cookies

 Cookie – a small file that contains information

about you and your Web activities, which a
Web site places on your computer
 Handle cookies by using
 Web browser cookie management option
 Buy a program that manages cookies

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Spam

 Spam – unsolicited e-mail from businesses

advertising goods and services
 Gets past spam filters by
 Inserting extra characters
 Inserting HTML tags that do nothing
 Replying usually increases, rather than decreases,
amount of spam

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Adware and Spyware

 Adware – software to generate ads that

installs itself when you download another
program
 Spyware (sneakware, stealthware) –
software that comes hidden in downloaded
software and helps itself to your computer
resources

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Web Logs

 Web log – one line of information for every

visitor to a Web site
 Clickstream – records information about you
during a Web surfing session such as what
Web sites you visited, how long you were
there, what ads you looked at, and what you
bought.
 Anonymous Web browsing (AWB) – hides
your identity from the Web sites you visit

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Privacy and Government
Agencies
 Many government agencies have databases
with information on people
 Government agencies need information to
operate effectively
 Whenever you are in contact with
government agency, you leave behind
information about yourself

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SECURITY AND EMPLOYEES

 Attacks on information and computer

resources come from inside and outside the
company
 In general, employee misconduct is more
costly than assaults from outside

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Security and Employees

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Security and Outside Threats

 Hackers – knowledgeable computer users

who use their knowledge to invade other
people's computers
 Computer virus (virus) – software that is
written with malicious intent to cause
annoyance or damage
 Worm – type of virus that spreads itself from
computer to computer usually via e-mail
 Denial-of-service (DoS) attack – floods a
Web site with so many requests for service
that it slows down or crashes
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Computer Viruses Can’t

 Hurt your hardware

 Ex: Monitors, printers, processors, etc.
 Hurt any files they weren’t designed to attack
 Ex: A worm designed to attack Outlook won’t
attack other e-mail programs
 Infect files on write-protected media

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Security Measures

1. Anti-virus software – detects and removes

or quarantines computer viruses
2. Anti-spyware and anti-adware software
3. Spam protection software – identifies and
marks and/or deletes Spam
4. Anti-phishing software – lets you know when
phishing attempts are being made
5. Firewall – hardware and/or software that
protects a computer or network from
intruders
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Security Measures

5. Anti-rootkit software – stops outsiders taking

control of your machine
6. Encryption – scrambles the contents of a
file so that you can’t read it without the
decryption key
7. Public Key Encryption (PKE) – an
encryption system with two keys: a public for
everyone and a private one for the recipient
8. Biometrics – the use of physiological
characteristics for identification purposes
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