Ethical and Social Implications of Cybercrime

A breach of security in a financial institution could mean billions of dollars lost among those utilizing banks for their savings. Therefore, banks not only have to protect themselves from these attacks, but their entire client base as well. This fact complicates the implementation of cybersecurity measures because of its underlying stress on ethical and social implications. Consider the following statement by JP Morgan in 2016, “JPMorgan Chase and other companies . . . have reported significant breaches in the security of their websites, networks or other systems, some of which have involved sophisticated and targeted attacks intended to obtain unauthorized access to confidential information, destroy data, disrupt or degrade service, sabotage systems or cause other damage, including through…cyber-attacks...

Statements such as the latter urge the public toward a negative perception of the financial services sector, especially when dealing with ethical and social issues. However, since the financial industry includes banks, securities firms, pension funds, mortgage lenders, and more, the public tend to group these headlines into the ethical mistakes of the banking sector. Ethics leader James A. Mitchell of the University of St. Thomas states, “This business that we’re talking about is really big. It is, to be precise, $50 trillion in assets. It’s growing 8 percent a year, which is more than twice as fast as the gross domestic product. It’s also highly profitable. The financial services sector of the S&P 500 represents 20 percent of this index’s market capitalization. These companies are making a lot of money serving you.” Though these companies appear to be losing large quantities of money from cybercrime, sources say that these losses only comprise a small percent of the absolute gains. It is also important to mention that the banking industry is extremely regulated, thus forcing companies, such as JP Morgan, to report on cyberattacks. Legislators force these companies to remain transparent to protect the general public from social and ethical discrepancies.