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November 22, 2016
Computer Ethics: Hacking and Denial of Services
In society today, computers have an immense impact on the daily life of many people all
around the world. There is an endless range of what computers can be used for which makes
computers relevant in every persons’ life. With the colossal impact that computers have on
peoples’ lives, it is imperative that people understand the concepts of computer ethics and
computer security.
Computer ethics is defined as a philosophy that addresses how to deal with the many
moral dilemmas that come from the use of computers and how they can be prevented. Computer
Security refers to the protecting computing systems and defending the data that is stored on these
systems. There are countless unlawful and unethical activities that are a result of computer usage.
In particular, one major unethical activity that happens often today is hacking and denial of
service, however by understanding the many aspects of hacking and denial of services and
relating them to computer ethics and computer security, these threats can be reduced.
Hacking is a term that began to be used in the 1990s and it is defined as the process of
seeking and manipulating vulnerabilities and loopholes of a system to gain unauthorized access
to the system’s resources. Although it is chilling to think about, there are hundreds of ways a
computer and its data can be hacked and this number is growing every day. As we see advances
in our technology, we also see advances in the way people can hack into other peoples’
information. A denial of service attack is one of the many popular methods hackers use to hack
people. When this type of attack occurs, an authorized user’s access to their computer network is
interrupted and shut down by a hacker. This can be done when by using multiple systems to
flood the bandwidth of the targeted system with traffic. Other popular types of hacking include
keylogger, waterhole attacks, phishing, clickjacking attacks and viruses. Furthermore, some of