Ethical hazards and safeguards in penetration testing.

Faily, Shamal; Iacob, Claudia; Field, Sarah

Abstract

Penetration testing entails attacking a system to identify and report insecurity, but doing so without harming the system nor encroaching on the dignity of those affected by it. To improve the interaction between penetration testers and their processes and technology, we need to understand the factors that affect decisions they make with ethical import. This paper presents four ethical hazards faced by penetration testers, and three safeguards that address them. We also present preliminary results validating the hazards and safeguards.

Citation

FAILY, S., IACOB, C. and FIELD, S. 2016. Ethical hazards and safeguards in penetration testing. In Proceedings of the 30th International BCS human computer interaction conference (HCI 2016): fusion, 11-15 July 2016, Poole, UK. Swindon: BCS [online], article number 83. Available from: https://doi.org/10.14236/ewic/HCI2016.83

• Conference Name: 30th International BCS human computer interaction conference (HCI 2016): fusion
• Conference Location: Poole, UK
• Start Date: Jul 11, 2016
• End Date: Jul 15, 2016
• Acceptance Date: Jul 11, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Jul 31, 2016
• Publication Date: Jul 31, 2016
• Deposit Date: Dec 7, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 7, 2021
• Publisher: BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT
• Series Title: Electronic workshops in computing
• Series ISSN: 1477-9358
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.14236/ewic/HCI2016.83
• Keywords: Penetration testing; Systems security; Hacking; Ethics and computing; Personas
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1437927