Clare,
After reviewing the predicament that your company is currently going through, I
believe you should know a little more about ethics and the role they play in business.
Ethics are defined as "the practice of decisions about what is good or right" (McGraw
Hill: Dynamic Business Law, Fifth Edition). Ethics are a driving force when it comes to
decision making in any situation. Business ethics is the application of ethics to help solve
problems experienced by a business. Business ethics and law go hand in hand. When
decisions made are un-ethical, there is a great chance that it is illegal as well. For
example, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prohibits businesses to pay bribes or make
payments to foreign officials in order to retain business in the related country. However,
this did not stop Siemens AG from making the unethical decision to bribe foreign
officials in 2008, therefore after an investigation was completed, Siemens AG was forced
to pay the highest fine in the act's history. Along with ethics, your business also has
corporate social responsibilities that you need to act on. Your business statement says
"We are committed to keeping customer information secure and protected," and after
reading your scenario it seems that you have fallen short of this promise. Corporate social
responsibility is involves being conscious of the impact that your company and your
actions have on society, economic and social aspects to your customers and the
community. Being a socially responsible corporation towards customers or community is
a very ethical business practice.
The ethical issues involved with your situation involve you and your customers.
Referring to your mission statement, having your network security be compromised and
allowing customer information to be accessed goes against your beliefs. It is highly
unethical to not inform your customers of the situation. Those people who partook in
your business deserve to be notified as they are the ones keeping the business operational.
If your customers information is used and their funds are stolen from their accounts, you
are subject to be sued by the customer. This is a Data Breach and is covered by laws
regarding data privacy. The justifiable reasoning for being sued is for the inability to keep
information safe within the company. The impacts of this breaching can cause damage to
your companies' reputation, loss of business and can lead up to high costs in legal fees
and fines. Also, your customers and community will not feel safe as their bank and social
security information has been compromised and can lead to them suffering financially
A data breach should not be taken lightly and should be followed by a course of
action to ensure your customers and your business' safety. First you should secure your
operations. Assemble a team of experts who would be able to investigate how this data
breach had occurred in the first place to ensure this did not happen again. Lock all
accounts to save all assets, and have customers and employees change