Ethical Analysis Using DET

Introduction

Ethics is one of the most important aspects of human life as it determines the nature and course of actions that a person will follow (Marian, 2011). The ethics in corporate world is similarly important so that the organization can achieve new heights. But, there are a number of cases that we can identify regularly where violation of these ethics or moral standards is accounted for every day. This report will analyse such a case where an organization was unable to follow the ethical standards and resulted in loss of valuable information with the help of DET (Doing Ethics Technique) analysis. Every possible step has been taken to keep the identity of everyone undisclosed.

Case
It is important for a company to maintain the confidentiality of its processes and every other information. The story is about a toy manufacturing company. Due to the high tech functionality of the toys they are required to be connected to the cloud and to a portal to regularly download learning materials. The information of millions of its customers and their children were hacked in November, 2015 when the server of was found vulnerable by an attacker. The organization concealed the information of this attack until asked by a reporter on 23rd November. Let us analyse the complete case with the DET analysis as below:
DET Analysis 
DET stands for Doing Ethics Technique is known for its guide that it provides to direct the businesses around to follow to the right business ethics required for maintaining the customer trust (Lewis, 2015). It even discusses the ethical issues and the way the organizations should address them using some questions.

What is going on?

             It was reported that around 1 million children and their parents’ records were found to be compromised through a cyber-attack on the servers of a toy producer firm in UK. It was reported that nearly 560,487 parents and 727,155 children profiles were stolen including the audio and the chat log files. The investigation on the matter concluded the fact that the database server recording the profiles and their intricate details were attacked. Among the stolen data were passwords, names, addresses and personal information of children. 
What are the facts?
            The facts that inferred from the case study of the attack include say that nearly 560,487 parent and 727,155 child profiles were stolen by the intruders. Chat logs that were stolen by the hackers were not found to be encrypted. Investigation concluded that database server was attacked. Image size approximately equal to 190GB and a large chunk of personal chat logs were amongst the stolen data along with the names, addresses and user passwords. Hacker declared that he did not exploit the information hacked by him on the dark web.
What are the ethical and non-ethical issues? 
            The ethical issues could be fundamental issues, diversity issues or government or compliance issues which are the norms that should be followed by organizations around in order to enforce a successful doing ethics technique. Whereas the non-ethical issues include the don’ts of any business that need not be followed in any business which lead to loss of all the ethical practices and loss of customers therefore loss of business revenues.
Who is affected?
            The list of affected parties due to this breach includes parents and children who bought the toys which accounts for nearly 560,487 parents and 727,155 children profiles. Specifically the customers who availed the Kid’s Connect service facilitated by the company were among the most affected entity as they have lost their customers’ trust and satisfaction that may lead to heavy loss in revenues (CNBC, 2015).
What can be done about it?
            The measures that can be followed to avoid such an attack in future would include an advanced and skilled IT security staff should be hired to deal with the situation. In case such attack occurs, organizations should not be ignorant and inform their customers about it as soon as possible. Appropriate encryption methods should be applied on chat and other file which are effective and efficient in nature. Advanced security systems should be implemented.

What are the options?
            The various options including the implementation of advanced security systems and effective encryption methods.

Conclusion
            The ethical dilemma like this has raised many issues on ethics that were supposed to be covered by the company. The Company which is a UK based toy manufacturing company experienced a breach attack on its database servers which lead to stealing of its parent and children profiles disclosing their personal information. The whole scenario raised the compliance ethical issues and provided the knowledge about how important ethics are in any business organisation.

 To order assignments on ethics, visit: www.australianassignmenthelp.com