Privacy And Security Points D-Link Router: FTC IoT Privacy And Security Push Points Out D-Link Router And Webcam Flaws

Ethical issue from the viewpoint of the stakeholder

Discuss about the Privacy and Security Points D-Link Router.

Ethical Dilemma is defined as a complex situation that leads the individual to select between the two choices when neither of the choices is helpful in bringing positive result on the society as well as to the individual (Ball, Borger and Greenwald 2013).The report illustrates “FTC IoT privacy and security push points out D-Link router and webcam flaws”.

The scenario discusses the privacy as well as security challenges that are faced by the Us Federal trade Commission. The case study suggests that FTC have charged D-link Corporation and its different American subsidiary for putting the privacy at risk. (Cobb2017). The Taiwan based computer networking equipment manufacturer was charged by FTC as the organization provides inadequate security of its cameras as well as computer routers. The case study illustrates the challenges that FTC needs to face in context with data privacy as well as security in the US as it is applied to the IoT.

In this assignment, the case study is reviewed from the viewpoint of stakeholders for analyzing the problem. The report also discusses different types of ethical obligations, reasons for solving the problem using ethical avenues and guidance provided by Australian Computer Society’s Code of Ethics.

The scenario “FTC IoT privacy and security push points out D-Link router and webcam flaws” reflects the ethical issues that are faced by the people.  The D-link Corporation, which is Taiwan based manufacturer of computer networking equipment, has put many of its consumers at risks. From the viewpoint of the consumers, the organization “D-link Corporations” have provided routers as well as cameras with inadequate security. This means that the consumers that have used the cameras as well as routers have faced number of ethical issues due to absence of proper and effective security. The actions of D-link Corporations have put the data privacy as well as security of US at risk as specifically they are associated with Internet of Things (Kshetri 2013). The consumers claimed that according to the policies of FTC the organization is having unfair business practices (Hall and McGraw 2014). They claimed that the organization “D-link” sells their products by advertising that their product uses very much advanced security system for protecting the private data of the consumers, which is not true. This leads that D-Link Corporations make an unjustified product claim for increasing their sales as well as revenues.

Reasons for solving the problem using ethical avenues rather than legal ones

The criteria used by D-link is very much unethical as many other vendors utilizes the products who might be honest to their client but due to the unfair practices of the organization they loses not only their brand but also their sales. The vendor that uses the product may faces number of challenges due to the critical flaws that are present in the routers. The FTC makes a complainant against the organization that they utilizes a tag line mentioning that by using their products, data and information can be secured easily (Agaku, et al. 2014). The tagline, which is used by D-Link Corporation, has attracted many vendors who became the victim of security flaws and their data as well as information are in danger.  The unfair practices by D-Link have put many of the consumer’s privacy at risk.

It is quite important to resolve the problem by utilizing some of the ethical avenues rather using legal ones. This is because the D-Link Corporation has used unfair business practices and the consumers that have used the products of the organization are facing huge challenges due to the loss of data and information. The problem can only be resolved if the D-Link organization uses proper as well as effective steps in improving the security of the products. The products must be submitted to some other organization for scrutiny (Eun, Lee and Oh 2013). This not only helps in increasing the assurance but it also helps in improving the security as well as privacy of the products. There are number of additional flaws, which are present in the D-link corporations, which can only be improved by using ethical avenues than legal ones. It has been analyzed that a command injection, which is considered as a software flaw, is present in the organization (Xiong et al. 2013). This flaw helps in enabling the remote attackers for controlling the routers of the consumers by forwarding them to unauthorized commands over the Internet.

The most significant problem that is analyzed can be solved legally is that private key code which is utilized for signing into the organization was present on a public website for a round six months. The organization must take proper decisions for resolving the issue (Pearson 2013).. The FTC must also need to support the organization so that they can improve their privacy as well as security. The ethical steps taken by the organization not only helps D-Link increasing their brand image but also helps their vendors in increasing their sales. The legal steps are not worthy enough to improve the security of the products of the organization because it does not provide D-link the opportunity to improve the security of their product by taking help from an outsider (Cobb 2017).   The ethical steps helps in resolving all the ethical challenges and also helps the organization in providing advanced security that further assists them to have fair business practice so that no one can blame them or can charge them legally.

Ethical obligations that stakeholders have towards one another as well as general population

The vendors of the organization “D-Link Corporation” have certain obligations against one another as well as the populations. The vendors or the other small organization that uses the products are very much honest to the customers and therefore they did not want to cheat them. In order to provide them with proper product the organizations needs to improve the security as well as privacy of the products delivered by D-Link Corporations as the organization D-link uses unfair practices of business (Cobb 2017).  They provide computer routers as well as cameras with inadequate securities and the vendor of the organization who uses the products of the company faces huge ethical challenges due to inadequate privacy as well as security (Sen  et al. 2013).The consumers or the vendors of the organization detect the problem and thus them wants to resolve it.

The main obligations of these organizations are to provide proper security as well as privacy to the data and information of the clients and as a result in order to fulfill those obligations they tried to improve the quality of products that are supplied by D-Link. Therefore the vendors claimed that the products delivered by the organization “D-Link Corporation” does not have advanced security for protecting the private data. FTC has charged a case against D-link blaming that the organization uses tagline that there product is very much secure which is not correct.  The action of D-link is very much immoral whereas it is analyzed that the steps taken by the vendors are moral on the basis of ethical obligations (Ancker et al. 2013).This is because the actions taken by the vendors helps in improving the quality of product of D-link and it must also forbids D-link engagement in immoral activities of business. As a result the vendors of the organization follows ethical obligations for providing privacy as well as security to their clients by using methods that are helpful in improving the product of D-Link Corporations.

 The American Code of Ethics is a part of ACS constitution. It helps in providing some of the guidance or implications in order to resolve the ethical issue. The implications include:

The Primacy of the Public Interest: The organization must provide products with proper privacy as well as security as it helps in attracting more number of customers and automatically the sales of the organization increases.

The Enhancement of quality of Life: The D-link must improve its quality of product be providing proper security to the products (Pathan 2016). It helps in securing the data as well as information off the users. It not only enhances the quality of life of the users but also increases the brand image of the organization.

Guidance provided by Australian Computer Society’s Code of Ethics

Honesty: Honesty is very much required by D-link as it provides product with inadequate security (Pearson 2013).The organization must be honest by using fair means of business practices so that it does not create a challenge for the users.

Competence: The D-link organization as well as its vendors must work with proper competence in order to resolve the challenge (Dinev et al. 2013). It not only helps in minimizing the problem but also helps in improving the products of D-link.

Professional Development: The organization “D-link Corporations” must enhance professionalism among themselves as well as its workers in order to deliver product with advanced security.

Professionalism: If D-link uses fair means of business by providing advanced security within its products then the organization will be helpful in enhancing integrity in society. It also helps in increasing the brand image of the organization.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that D-link is practicing business in an unfair way which creates numerous ethical challenges for its users. It is analyzed that in order to improve the security of the products the organization must follow some rules. The charge that is provided by FTC helps the organization in improving their security by taking the help of the outside scrutinizer. It is identified from the overall scenario that the actions taken by vendors are very much moral whereas the actions of D-link is considered as immoral. This is because D-link provides provide computer routers as well as cameras with inadequate securities and the vendor of the organization who uses the products of the company faces huge ethical challenges due to inadequate privacy as well as security. It is identified that the organization must  resolve the problem ethically as the ethical steps not only helps in resolving all the ethical challenges but it also helps the organization in providing advanced security which further assists them to have fair business practice so that no one can blame them or can charge them legally. The American Code of Ethics helps in providing guidance for resolving the issues.

References

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Ancker, J.S., Silver, M., Miller, M.C. and Kaushal, R., 2013. Consumer experience with and attitudes toward health information technology: a nationwide survey. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association,20(1), pp.152-156.

Ball, J., Borger, J. and Greenwald, G., 2013. Revealed: how US and UK spy agencies defeat internet privacy and security. The Guardian, 6.

Cobb, S. (2017). FTC IoT privacy and security push points out D-Link router and webcam flaws. [online] WeLiveSecurity. Available at: https://www.welivesecurity.com/2017/01/06/ftc-d-link-iot-privacy-and-security/ [Accessed 8 Jan. 2017].

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Eun, H., Lee, H.,  and Oh, H., 2013. Conditional privacy preserving security protocol for NFC applications. IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics,59(1), 153-160.

Hall, J.L. and McGraw, D., 2014. For telehealth to succeed, privacy and security risks must be identified and addressed. Health Affairs, 33(2), pp.216-221.

Kshetri, N., 2013. Privacy and security issues in cloud computing: The role of institutions and institutional evolution. Telecommunications Policy, 37(4), pp.372-386.

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Pathan, A.S.K. ed., 2016. Security of self-organizing networks: MANET, WSN, WMN, VANET. CRC press.

Pearson, S., 2013. Privacy, security and trust in cloud computing. In Privacy and Security for Cloud Computing (pp. 3-42). Springer London

Sen, M., Dutt, A., Agarwal, S. and Nath, A., 2013, April. Issues of privacy and security in the role of software in smart cities. In Communication Systems and Network Technologies (CSNT), 2013 International Conference on (pp. 518-523). IEEE.

Xiong, L., Sunderam, V., Fan, L., Goryczka, S. and Pournajaf, L., 2013. Predict: Privacy and security enhancing dynamic information collection and monitoring. Procedia Computer Science, 18, pp.1979-1988.