Abstract
Cybersecurity is of capital importance in a world where economic and social processes increasingly rely on digital technology. Although the primary ethical motivation of cybersecurity is prevention of informational or physical harm, its enforcement can also entail conflicts with other moral values. This contribution provides an outline of value conflicts in cybersecurity based on a quantitative literature analysis and qualitative case studies. The aim is to demonstrate that the security-privacy- dichotomy—that still seems to dominate the ethics discourse based on our bibliometric analysis—is insufficient when discussing the ethical challenges of cybersecurity. Furthermore, we want to sketch how the notion of contextual integrity could help to better understand and mitigate such value conflicts.
Highlights
The increasing use of information and communication technology (ICT) in all spheres of modern life makes the world a richer, more efficient and interactive place
The aim is to demonstrate that the security-privacydichotomy—that still seems to dominate the ethics discourse based on our bibliometric analysis—is insufficient when discussing the ethical challenges of cybersecurity
We used the following methodology for identifying search keywords: In a first step, relying on literature, on the “keyword” function of Scopus and on the cybersecurity experts in the CANVAS consortium,2 we identified terms that characterize either general aspects of cybersecurity or specific aspects
Summary
The increasing use of information and communication technology (ICT) in all spheres of modern life makes the world a richer, more efficient and interactive place. Our paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of ethical issues in cyber-security We used the following methodology for identifying search keywords: In a first step, relying on literature, on the “keyword” function of Scopus (the database allows extracting keywords used in a publication body by the authors of publications) and on the cybersecurity experts in the CANVAS consortium, we identified terms that characterize either general aspects of cybersecurity or specific aspects.. The relative weight of social sciences and humanities papers is even a bit larger in the CYBER literature body compared to the ICT body In both databases, the majority of papers are conference proceedings papers (Scopus: 58%, WoS: 56%), followed by journal articles (Scopus: 34%, WoS: 39%); the other categories are negligible. More subtle differences between the two databases are currently under investigation
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