1. Legal, Ethical, and Professional Issues in Information Security
Principles of Information Security
Chapter 3

2. Chapter Objectives
Upon completion of this chapter you should be able to:
Use this chapter as a guide for future reference on laws, regulations, and professional organizations.
Differentiate between laws and ethics.
Identify major national laws that relate to the practice of information security.
Describe the role of culture as it applies to ethics in information security.

3. *Law and Ethics in Information Security
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The Social Contract or Principles of Political Right (1762)
"The rules the members of a society create to balance the right of the individual to self-determination with the needs of the society as a whole are called laws."
Laws**
Rules that mandate or prohibit certain behavior in society.
Carry the sanctions of governing authority.
Ethics**
Define socially acceptable behaviors.
Universally recognized examples include murder, theft, assault, and arson.
Cultural Mores
The fixed moral attitudes or customs of a particular group.

4. Organizational Liability
Legal obligation of an entity that extends beyond criminal or contract law.
Includes obligation to make restitution, or compensate for, wrongs committed by an organization or its employees.
Organization can be held financially liable (responsible) for actions of employees.
Obligation increases if organization fails to take due care.

5. Organizational Responsibilities for Due Care and Due Diligence
Must ensure that every employee knows
what is acceptable or unacceptable behavior
consequences of illegal or unethical actions.
Due diligence**
Requires organization to
make a valid effort to protect others
continually maintain this level of effort
Internet has global reach --- injury/wrong can occur anywhere in the world.
Jurisdiction**
A court's right to hear a case if a wrong was committed in its territory, or involves its citizenry --- long arm jurisdiction.
In U.S., any court can impose its authority over individuals or organizations, if it can establish jurisdiction

6. Policy vs Law
Laws
External legal requirements
Security policies**. Internal (organizational) rules that:
Describe acceptable and unacceptable employee behaviors.
Organizational laws --- including penalties and sanctions.
Must be complete, appropriate and fairly applied in the work place.
In order to be enforceable, policies must be
Disseminated. Distributed to all individuals and readily available for employee reference.
Reviewed. Document distributed in a format that could be read by employeees.
Comprehended. Employees understand the requirements --- e.g., quizzes or other methods of assessment.
Compliance. Employee agrees to comply with the policy.
Uniformly enforced, regardless of employee status or assignment.

7. Types of Law Civil law** Criminal law** Private law** Public law**
Laws that govern a nation or state.
Criminal law**
Violations harmful to society
Actively enforced by prosecution by the state.
Private law**
regulates relationship between individual and organization.
encompasses family law, commercial law, labor law.
Public law**
regulates structure and administration of government agencies and their relationships with citizens, employees, and other governments, providing careful checks and balances.
Includes criminal, administrative and constitutional law.

8. U.S. General Computer Crime Laws
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 (CFA Act)**
Cornerstone of federal laws and enforcement acts
Addresses threats to computers
Communications Act of 1934
Addresses Telecommunications
modified by Telecommunications Deregulation and Competition Act of 1996
modernize archaic terminology
Computer Security Act of 1987**
Protect federal computer systems (federal agencies)
Establish minimum acceptable security practices.

9. U.S. Privacy Laws Privacy Issues Privacy of Customer Information
Collection of personal information
Clipper chip - never implemented
Privacy of Customer Information
U.S. Legal Code Privacy of Customer Information Section
Responsibilities of common carriers (phone co) to protect confidentiality
Federal Privacy Act of 1974**
Regulates government protection of privacy, with some exceptions
Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986**
Fourth Amendment - unlawful search and seizure
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)**
Kennedy-Kassebaum Act
Privacy of electronic data interchange for health care data
Financial Services Modernization Act (1999)**
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999
Banks, securities firms, and insurance companies - disclosure of privacy policies

10. U.S. Copyright Law**
Recognizes intellectual property as a protected asset in the U.S.
published word, including electronic formats
Fair use of copyrighted materials
Includes
support news reporting
teaching
scholarship
related activities
Use MUST be for educational or library purposes
not for profit
not excessive
include proper acknowledgment to original author

11. Financial Reporting Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002** Affects
publicly traded corporations
public accounting firms
result of Enron, among others.
improve reliability and accuracy of financial reporting.
increase accountability of corporate governance in publicly traded companies.
Executives will need
assurance on reliability and quality of information systems from information technology managers.
Key issue: compliance with reporting requirements.

12. Freedom of Information Act of 1996 (FOIA)**
Any person may request access to federal agency records or information not determined to be a matter of national security.
Agencies must disclose requested information
After the request has been reviewed and determined not to pose a risk to national security.
Does NOT apply to:
state/local government agencies
private businesses or individuals.

13. State and Local Regulations
Locally implemented laws pertaining to information security.
Information security professionals must be aware of these laws and comply with them.

14. International Laws and Legal Bodies
Few international laws relating to privacy and information security.
European Council Cyper-Crime Convention
2001. Creates international task force
Improve effectiveness of international investigations
Emphasis on copyright infringement prosecution
Lacks realistic provisions for enforcement
WTO Agreement on Intellectual Property Rights
Intellectual property rules for multilateral trade system.
Digital Millenium Copyright Act**
U.S. response to 1995 Directive 95/46/EC by E.U.
U.K. Database Right
United Nations Charter
Information Warfare provisions.

15. Security Breaches Punishment
If not caught: illegal to demand a payment in order to “disappear without a track”
But banks and financial institutions have to keep it quiet…
If caught in a “lawful” country: fines and/or jail sentence
AOL employees
“$130 mil. stolen in computer crime. Each defendant faces the possibility of 35 years in prison, and more than $1 million in fines or twice the amount made from the crime, whichever is greater.” research.org/news/ /3750/
Malicious kids go to jail
Kevin Mitnick and Robert Morris
Federal cases database (only up to 2006)

16. Ethics and Information Security
Ethical issues of information security professionals
Expected to be leaders in ethical workplace behavior
No binding professional code of ethics
Some professional organizations provide ethical codes of conduct,
Have no authority to banish violators from professional practice.

17. Cultural Differences and Ethics
Different nationalities have different perspectives on computer ethics
Asian tradition - collective ownership
Western tradition - intellectual property rights
Study of computer use ethics among students in 9 nations
Singapore, Hong Kong, U.S., England, Australia, Sweden, Wales, Netherlands
Studied 3 categories of use
software license infringement
illicit use
misuse of corporate resources

18. Cultural Differences: Software License Infringement
Most nations had similar attitudes toward software piracy
U.S.
significantly less tolerant (least tolerant)
Other countries
moderate
higher piracy rates in Singapore/Hong Kong
may result from lack of legal disincentives or punitive measures
Netherlands
most permissive
least likely to honor copyrights of content creators
lower piracy rate than Singapore/Hong Kong

19. Cultural Differences: Illicit Use of Software
Viruses, hacking, other forms of abuse uniformly condemned as unacceptable behavior.
Singapore/Hong Kong
most tolerant
Sweden/Netherlands
in-between
U.S., Wales, England, Australia
least tolerant

20. Cultural Differences: Misuse of Corporate Resources
Generally lenient attitudes toward
personal use of company computing resources.
Singapore/Hong Kong
viewed personal use as unethical (least tolerant)
Other countries
Personal use acceptable if not specifically prohibited
Netherlands
most lenient

21. Ethics and Education Education
overriding factor in leveling the ethical perceptions within a small population
Employees must be trained and kept aware of topics related to information security, including expected ethical behaviors..
Many employees may not have formal technical training to understand that their behavior is unethical or illegal.
Ethical and legal training is an essential key to developing informed, well-prepared, and low-risk system users.

22. Deterrence to Unethical and Illegal Behavior
Use policy, education, training, and technology to protect information systems.
3 categories of unethical and illegal behavior
Ignorance
No excuse for violating law, but allowable for policies.
Use education, policies, training, awareness programs to keep individuals aware of policies.
Accident
Use careful planning and control to prevent accidental modifications to system and data.
Intent
Frequent cornerstone for prosecution.
Best controls are litigation, prosecution, and technical controls.

23. Deterrence Best method to prevent illegal or unethical activity.
Laws, policies, and technical controls
3 conditions required for effective deterrence
Fear of penalty
reprimand or warnings may not have the same effectiveness as imprisonment or loss of pay.
Probability of being caught
must believe there is a strong possibility of being caught.
Probability of penalty being administered
must believe the penalty will be administered
Note: threats don’t work --- penalties must be realistic and enforceable.

24. Codes of Ethics Established by various professional organizations
Produce a positive effect on judgment regarding computer use
Establishes responsibility of security professionals to act ethically
according to the policies and procedures of their employers, professional organizations, and laws of society.
Organizations assume responsibility to develop, disseminate, and enforce policies.

25. Major IT Professional Organizations and Ethics
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
promotes education and provides discounts for students
educational and scientific computing society
International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC2)
develops and implements information security certifications and credentials
System Administration, Networking, and Security Institute (SANS)
Global Information Assurance Certifications (GIAC)
Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA)
focus on auditing, control and security
Computer Security Institute (CSI)
sponsors education and training for information security
Information Systems Security Association (ISSA)
information exchange and educational development for information security practitioners

26. Other Security Organizations
Internet Society (ISOC)
develop education, standards, policy, and education and training to promote the Internet
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
develops Internet's technical foundations
Computer Security Division (CSD) of National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST)
Computer Security Resource Center (CSRC)
Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT)**
CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC)
Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR)
promotes ethical and responsible development and use of computing
watchdog for development of ethical computing

27. U.S. Federal Agencies Related to Information Security
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Directorate of Information and Infrastructure
discover and respond to attacks on national information systems and critical infrastructure
research and development of software and technology
Science and Technology Directorate
Research and development activities
examination of vulnerabilities
sponsors emerging best practices
FBI National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC)
U.S. government center for threat assessment, warning, investigation, and response to threats or attacks against U.S. infrastructures
National InfraGard Program
cooperative effort between public and private organizations and academic community
provides free exchange of information with private sector regarding threats and attacks.

28. U.S. Federal Agencies (2) National Security Agency (NSA)**
U.S. cryptologic organization
Centers of Excellence in Information Assurance Education
recognition for universities/schools
acknowledgment on NSA web site
Program to certify curricula in information security
Information Assurance Courseware Evaluation
Provides 3 year accreditation
U.S. Secret Service
Part of Department of Treasury
One mission is to detect and arrest any person committing U.S. federal offenses related to computer fraud and false identification crimes.