Ethical dilemmas and dimensions in penetration testing.

Faily, Shamal; McAlaney, John; Iacob, Claudia

Abstract

Penetration testers are required to attack systems to evaluate their security, but without engaging in unethical behaviour while doing so. Despite work on hacker values and studies into security practice, there is little literature devoted to the ethical pressures associated with penetration testing. This paper presents several ethical dilemmas and dimensions associated with penetration testing; these shed light on the ethical positions taken by penetration testers, and help identify potential fallacies and biases associated with each position.

Citation

FAILY, S., MCALANEY, J. and IACOB, C. 2015. Ethical dilemmas and dimensions in penetration testing. In Furnell, S.M. and Clarke, N.L. (eds.) Proceedings of the 9th International symposium on human aspects of information security and assurance (HAISA 2015), 1-3 July 2015, Mytilene, Greece. Plymouth: Plymouth University, pages 233-242.

• Conference Name: 9th International symposium on human aspects of information security and assurance (HAISA 2015)
• Conference Location: Mytilene, Greece
• Start Date: Jul 1, 2015
• End Date: Jul 3, 2015
• Acceptance Date: May 11, 2015
• Publication Date: Dec 31, 2015
• Deposit Date: Dec 7, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 7, 2021
• Publisher: University of Plymouth
• Pages: 233-242
• ISBN: 9781841023885
• Keywords: Systems security; Penetration testing; Software testing; Hacking; Ethics and computing
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1446664