Defining the Legal and Ethical Boundaries at the Cyber Frontier

In his lecture, Michael Chertoff raises questions about dealing with cybersecurity on the legal and ethical fronts. He says that many the policymakers do not understand the technicalities involved in the cybersecurity as many technicalities are explained in a scientific language that is hard to understand for a non-scientist. According to him, it is crucial to explain these terms in non-technical terms to help everybody including the policymakers to understand and apply suitable measures to counter cyber attacks.

 According to O’Conell (2012), the extent to which the private sector acts to thwart the cyber threats is restricted by policy and law. Chertoff also takes an ethical and legal front in a way to help the policymakers to understand the legal and ethical factors behind cybersecurity.

Form Chertoff’s lecture, the other thing that is addressed is the issue of security architecture. He discusses how the attackers take advantage of loopholes in the security architecture to accomplish their desires of stealing intellectual property –both business intellectual property and technology intellectual property. The crime of intellectual property theft has been increasing since the advent of the social media and IoT. According to Jensen (2009), there is a need for a partnership between the private and the public sectors if the evolving and future cyber challenges are to be effectively addressed. Information useful for the investigation should be gathered according to Chertoff, but the cyberspace is making it even harder.

Cyberspace against critical infrastructure is another concept Chertoff handles in his lecturer. He asserts that the cybersecurity criminals are taking advantage of the cyberspace to launch attacks against both the private and public sector. These attackers are privileged in that this cyberspace has made it possible to move the attack from one point to another across the globe without being traced. He also asserts that the strategies have not yet implemented to handle such issues because to prosecute an attacker you have to gather as much information as possible to show that the attack was made by a given cyber criminal. There must be a proof before a response takes place (Imperial College, 2012).

The other concept I learn from the video clip is that of addressing the war. According to Chertoff, both the physical and the cyberspace have facilitated the cyber war in one way or another. Stone (2013) defines the cyber war as the actions by one state to penetrate another state’s computer and networks with the aim of causing damage or disruption. Chertoff also talks about how the cybercriminals are targeting their attacks against industrial controls systems which are critical to organizations and countries. He proposes the creation of systems that can control the networks and detect any attacks before they can take place.

The other concept addressed by Chertoff is the control of the data we create and that created by others. He says that the advent of the social media makes people give out too much information to others without even caring about their privacy and how the information will be used. It is not only about directly giving information to someone but also posts on the social media and photographs. These can lead to misappropriation of someone’s image. To develop new transitional techniques for domain seizures and access to private data through content takedowns, there is a need for data and information governance which lies at the intersection of the following policy areas: legal interoperability, cybersecurity, human rights, and economy (Ning & Liu, 2012). Some of these factors are also addressed by Chertoff.

References

Imperial College (2012, October 23). Defining the legal and ethical boundaries at the cyber frontier. 

Jensen, E. T. (2009). Cyber warfare and precautions against the effects of attacks. Tex. L. Rev., 88, 1533.

Ning, H., & Liu, H. (2012). Cyber-physical-social based security architecture for future internet of things. Advances in Internet of Things, 2(01), 1.

O’Connell, M. E. (2012). Cyber security without cyber war. Journal of Conflict and Security Law, 17(2), 187-209.

Stone, J. (2013). Cyber war will take place!. Journal of Strategic Studies, 36(1), 101-108.

Carolyn Morgan is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in professional academic writing services. If you need a similar paper you can place your order from cheap reliable essay writing service.