Corporate Ethics and Hacking

Although the predominant opinion expressed by governments and mainstream press regarding hacking is one of disapproval and unsubstantiated fear, the truth is that hacking may be deployed ethically or unethically depending on the situation, and in fact, hacking into a website or database is entirely justifiable in certain contexts. In order to see why this is the case as well as understand the complex role of corporations and CEOs in responding to hacking attempts, it will be useful to examine a variety of instances in which corporations have been hacked or otherwise had their data or systems compromised. By looking at the recent hacks of the security firm HBGary, the search engine giant Google, and the collection of blogs run by Gawker Media, it will become clear that not only do corporations have a social responsibility to protect their customers and clients from hacking attempts, but...
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