Chapter 4: Ethics and Information Security: MIS Business Concerns

Vertical Privilege Escalation

Attackers grant themselves a higher access level such as administrator, allowing the attacker to perform illegal actions such as running unauthorized code or deleting data

Horizontal Privilege Escalation

Attackers grant themselves the same access levels they already have but assume the identity of another user

Spyware

Software that comes hidden in free downloadable software and tracks online movements, mines the information stored on a computer, or uses a computer's CPU and storage for some task the user knows nothing about.

Information Security

a broad term encompassing the protection of information from accidental or intentional misuse by persons inside or outside an organization. Information security is the primary tool an organization can use to combat the threats associated with downtime.

Drive-by Hacking

a computer attack by which an attacker accesses a wireless computer network, intercepts data, uses network services, and/or sends attack instructions without entering the office or organization that owns the network

Competitive Click-Fraud

a computer crime in which a competitor or disgruntled employee increases a company's search advertising costs by repeatedly clicking the advertiser's link

Nonrepudiation

a contractual stipulation to ensure that ebusiness participants do not deny (repudiate) their online actions

Bug Bounty Program

a crowdsourcing initiative that rewards individuals for discovering and reporting software bugs

Digital Certificate

a data file that identifies individuals or organizations online and is comparable to a digital signature

Smart Card

a device about the size of a credit card containing embedded technologies that can store information and small amounts of software to perform some limited processing

Pretexting

a form of social engineering in which one individual lies to obtain confidential data about another individual

Fair Information Practices (FIP)

a general term for a set of standards governing the collection and use of personal data and addressing issues of privacy and accuracy. Different organizations and countries have their own terms for these concerns

Zombie Farm

a group of computers on which a hacker has planted zombie programs

Authentification

a method for confirming users' identities. Once a system determines the authentication of a user, it can then determine the access privileges (or authorization) for that user

Information Governance

a method or system of government for information management or control

Privilege Escalation

a network intrusion attack that takes advantage of programming errors or design flaws to grant the attacker elevated access to the network and its associated data and applications

Downtime

a period of time when a system is unavailable

Social Media Manager

a person within the organization who is trusted to monitor, contribute, filter, and guide the social media presence of a company, individual, product, or brand

Spear Phishing

a phishing expedition in which the emails are carefully designed to target a particular person or organization

Vishing (Voice Phishing)

a phone scam that attempts to defraud people by asking them to call a bogus telephone number to confirm their account information

Typosquatting

a problem that occurs when someone registers purposely misspelled variations of well-known domain names

Zombie

a program that secretly takes over another computer for the purpose of launching attacks on other computers

Voiceprint

a set of measurable characteristics of a human voice that uniquely identifies an individual

Phishing

a technique to gain personal information for the purpose of identity theft, usually by means of fraudulent emails that look as though they came from legitimate businesses

Digital Rights Management

a technological solution that allows publishers to control their digital media to discourage, limit, or prevent illegal copying and distribution

Certificate Authority

a trusted third party, such as VeriSign, that validates user identities by means of digital certificates

Scareware

a type of malware designed to trick victims into giving up personal information to purchase or download useless and potentially dangerous software

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

allows employees to use their personal mobile devices and computers to access enterprise data and applications

Threat

an act or object that poses a danger to assets

Teergrubing

an anti-spamming approach by which the receiving computer launches a return attack against the spammer, sending email messages back to the computer that originated the suspected spam

Information Property

an ethical issue that focuses on who owns information about individuals and how information can be sold and exchanged

Patent

an exclusive right to make, use, and sell an invention and is granted by a government to the inventor

Cyberwar

an organized attempt by a country's military to disrupt or destroy information and communication systems of another country.

Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

any data that could potentially identify a specific individual

Black-hat Hacker

break into other people's computer systems and may just look around or may steal and destroy information.

Time Bomb

computer viruses that wait for a specific date before executing their instructions

Identity Theft

consists of forging someone's identity for the purpose of fraud

Information Privacy Policy

contains general principles regarding information privacy

Ethical Computer Use Policy

contains general principles to guide computer user behavior

Internet Use Policy

contains general principles to guide the proper use of the Internet

Decrypt

decoding information

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)

designed to keep government information secure

Information Security Plan

details how an organization will implement the information security policies.

Email Privacy Policy

details the extent to which email messages may be read by others

HIPAA Security RUle

ensures national standards for securing patient data that is stored or transferred electronically

Information Management

examines the organizational resource of information and regulates its definitions, uses, value, and distribution ensuring it has the types of data/information required to function and grow effectively

Hackers

experts in technology who use their knowledge to break into computers and computer networks, either for profit or simply for the challenge

Intrusion Detection Software (IDS)

features full-time monitoring tools that search for patterns in network traffic to identify intruders

Script Kiddies or Script Bunnies

find hacking code on the Internet and click-and-point their way into systems to cause damage or spread viruses.

Antivirus Software

gathers an organization's computer network traffic patterns to identify unusual or suspicious operations

Network Behavior Analysis

gathers an organization's computer network traffic patterns to identify unusual or suspicious operations

Information Ethics

govern the ethical and moral issues arising from the development and use of information technologies as well as the creation, collection, duplication, distribution, and processing of information itself (with or without the aid of computer technologies)

Internet Censorship

government attempts to control Internet traffic, thus preventing some material from being viewed by a country's citizens

Social Engineering

hackers use their social skills to trick people into revealing access credentials or other valuable information

Firewall

hardware and/or software that guard a private network by analyzing incoming and outgoing information for the correct markings

Cracker

have criminal intent when hacking.

Hactivists

have philosophical and political reasons for breaking into systems and will often deface the website as a protest.

Information Security Policies

identify the rules required to maintain information security, such as requiring users to log off before leaving for lunch or meetings, never sharing passwords with anyone, and changing passwords every 30 days

Cyber-Vigilantes

include individuals that seek notoriety or want to make a social or political point such as WikiLeaks.

Cyber-Espionage

includes governments that are after some form of information about other governments.

Cyberbullying

includes threats, negative remarks, or defamatory comments transmitted through the Internet or posted on the website

Sensitive PIL

information transmitted with encryption and, when disclosed, results in a breach of an individual's privacy and can potentially cause the individual harm

Nonsensitive PII

information transmitted without encryption and includes information collected from public records, phone books, corporate directories, websites, etc.

Intellectual Property

intangible creative work that is embodied in physical form and includes copyrights, trademarks, and patents

Ransomware

is a form of malicious software that infects your computer and asks for money

Phishing Expedition

is a masquerading attack that combines spam with spoofing

Insiders

legitimate users who purposely or accidentally misuse their access to the environment and cause some kind of business-affecting incident

Dumpster Diving

looking through people's trash, is another way hackers obtain information

Destructive Agents

malicious agents designed by spammers and other Internet attackers to farm email addresses off websites or deposit spyware on machines

Content Filtering

occurs when organizations use software that filters content, such as emails, to prevent the accidental or malicious transmission of unauthorized information

Social Media Policy

outlining the corporate guidelines or principles governing employee online communications

Rule 41

part of the United States Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure that covers the search and seizure of physical and digital evidence

Epolicies

policies and procedures that address information management along with the ethical use of computers and the internet in the business environment

Opt Out

receiving emails by choosing to deny permission to incoming emails

Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

requires a user to agree to follow it to be provided access to corporate email, information systems, and the Internet

Multifactor Authentification

requires more than two means of authentication such as what the user knows (password), what the user has (security token), and what the user is (biometric verification)

Two-Factor Authentication

requires the user to provide two means of authentication, what the user knows (password) and what the user has (security token)

Pharming

reroutes requests for legitimate websites to false websites

Encryption

scrambles information into an alternative form that requires a key or password to decrypt.

Cyberterrorists

seek to cause harm to people or to destroy critical systems or information and use the Internet as a weapon of mass destruction.

Mail bomb

sends a massive amount of email to a specific person or system that can cause that user's server to stop functioning

Tokens

small electronic devices that change user passwords automatically

Adware

software that generates ads that install themselves on a computer when a person downloads some other program from the Internet.

Malware

software that is intended to damage or disable computers and computer systems

Counterfeit Software

software that is manufactured to look like the real thing and sold as such

Virus

software written with malicious intent to cause annoyance or damage.

Worm

spreads itself not only from file to file but also from computer to computer

Anti-Spam Policy

states that email users will not send unsolicited emails (or spam)

Employee Monitoring Policy

stating explicitly how, when, and where the company monitors its employees

Physical Security

tangible protection such as alarms, guards, fireproof doors, fences, and vaults

Ediscovery (electronic discovery)

the ability of a company to identify, search, gather, seize, or export digital information in responding to a litigation, audit, investigation, or information inquiry

Click-Fraud

the abuse of pay-per-click, pay-per-call, and pay-per-conversion revenue models by repeatedly clicking a link to increase charges or costs for the advertiser

Information Compliance

the act of conforming, acquiescing, or yielding information

Confidentiality

the assurance that messages and information remain available only to those authorized to view them

Information Secracy

the category of computer security that addresses the protection of data from unauthorized disclosure and confirmation of data source authenticity

Cybervandalism

the electronic defacing of an existing website

Biometrics

the identification of a user based on a physical characteristic, such as a fingerprint, iris, face, voice, or handwriting

Copyright

the legal protection afforded an expression of an idea, such as a song, book, or video game

Astroturfing

the practice of artificially stimulating online conversation and positive reviews about a product, service, or brand

Ethics

the principles and standards that guide our behavior toward other people.

Social Media Monitoring

the process of monitoring and responding to what is being said about a company, individual, product, or brand. Social media monitoring typically falls to the

Authorization

the process of providing a user with permission, including access levels and abilities such as file access, hours of access, and amount of allocated storage space.

Privacy

the right to be left alone when you want to be, to have control over your personal possessions, and not to be observed without your consent

Cryptography

the science that studies encryption, which is the hiding of messages so that only the sender and receiver can read them

Single-Factor Authentication

the traditional security process, which requires a user name and password

Pirated Software

the unauthorized use, duplication, distribution, or sale of copyrighted software

Sock-Puppet Marketing

the use of a false identity to artificially stimulate demand for a product, brand, or service.

Cyberterrorism

the use of computer and networking technologies against persons or property to intimidate or coerce governments, individuals, or any segment of society to attain political, religious, or ideological goals.

Website Name Stealing

theft of a website's name that occurs when someone, posing as a site's administrator, changes the ownership of the domain name assigned to the website to another website owner

Opt In

to receive emails by choosing to allow permissions to incoming emails

Workplace MIS Monitoring

tracks people's activities by such measures as number of keystrokes, error rate, and number of transactions processed

Spam

unsolicited email

Pharming Attack

uses a zombie farm, often by an organized crime association, to launch a massive phishing attack.

Public Key Encryption (PKE)

uses two keys: a public key that everyone can have and a private key for only the recipient

Child Online Protection Act (COPA)

was passed to protect minors from accessing inappropriate material on the Internet

White-hat Hackers

work at the request of the system owners to find system vulnerabilities and plug the holes.