Topic 2: Security Consultants

Frank Abagnale, the criminal played by Leonardo DiCaprio in themotion picture “Catch Me If You Can,” ended up in prison. After he leftprison, however, he worked as a consultant to many companies on mattersof fraud.

(a) Why do these companies hire the perpetrators (if caught) as consultants? Is this a good idea?

(b) You are the CEO of a company. Discuss the ethical implications of hiring Frank Abagnale as a consultant.

Just do response each posted #1 to 3 down below only

Posted 1

The phrase “what is unethical is not necessarily illegal (Rainer& Prince, 2018, Chapter 3, Section 3.1) fits in perfectly here.While it may not be illegal to hire a criminal, but it can be unethicalto hire someone to guard a system that they broke laws to get into. Somepeople look at it as it takes a criminal to catch a criminal. Whatbetter way to get that done than hiring the person the broke into yours.If they broke in, then they know where the holes are, and can help youto find others to keep it safer and better. The unethical part of it, isthat you’re are giving the keys to the vault, to the person that triedto empty it.

IfI was the CEO of a company, and I knew that a person was able to bypassthe security system to get into that data. I could be tempted to hirethem as a consultant. If they are smarter than the security system that Ihave in place, then what better way to fix it than to employ the personthat can get around it. This does present an ethical issue for me. Imake my money by providing a service of protecting data of my customer’sthey have to trust me to do so to the best of my ability. The best ofmy ability is to do whatever I can to protect that data at any cost. Thebiggest ethical issue is telling my customers of my decision to hirethe person that was able to get into their data to protect their data.What if I didn’t tell them, and the idea backfired, giving the personthe ability to get more of their data or all of it, and steal everythingthey owned? That would ruin not only myself and my business, buteveryone I employ, and all of my customers.

Posted 2

Thisdiscussion topic has you thinking deep into ethics. Companies hireperpetrators, such as Frank Abagnale, as consultants as an advantage.The perpetrator has the skills, knowledge, and speed that could advancethe organization and help them from being so vulnerable to activecriminals, which are reasons if I were a CEO of a company, ethicalimplications of hiring Frank Abagnale as a consultant that I wouldconsider. I would consider taking countermeasures, such as hiring asecond person in the same position or implement additional audits, toattempt to prevent gross negligence because an advanced criminal maycompromise an organization system, unnoticed. Intelligent perpetratorswho have been found guilty, served their time, and have claimed thatthey have turned their lives around do deserve a second chance. Thatdoes not mean a company should have to trust them completely to let themwork freely without taking any additional countermeasures.

To conclude, because there is a severe shortage in cybersecurityexperts, that do not have a previous criminal record, I think,perpetrators should be hired. They should be employed with minimal tolimited trust, and extra precautions taken if the organization canafford it. I do not think a company can put complete trust in aperpetrator because they could retract to their old ways. Companies caneven consider lie detector tests every so often or adding additionalsecurity, such as other approvals or clearance logins, for certain partsof the software. Perpetrators that are not hired could go back to theirroots and continue to hack into systems, maybe the company’s systemthat rejected them, to earn a livelihood, or perhaps not, because theydo not want to suffer the consequences all over again.

Posted 3

Accordingto PR Newswire, “ThreatAdvice, (threatadvice.com) a provider ofcybersecurity education, awareness and threat intelligence has named Frank Abagnale asits new company spokesperson” (PR Newswire, 2018, Dec. 10). This is anexample of a company hiring a convicted criminal to assist with theirinformation technology matters. I think many companies look at thesituations associated with the perpetrator and grant lenience based onthe situation and the age at the time of the crime. There are peoplethat commit fraud at a young age because they are savvy with technologyand they do not always understand the ramifications of their actions.Depending on what a business owners’ stance is on prison reform wouldhave a lot to do with giving criminals a second chance with a job. Ifyou hire a convicted criminal to consult with your company, you may getsomeone who is not only savvy with computers and information, but theyalso think critically about what hackers look for when selecting atarget. I don’t think you can give a blanket answer of yes or no aboutwhether you should hire a criminal, because there are so many variablesthat go into each situation. I do think that hiring a convicted criminalshould be the exception and not the norm.

Atthis point in time, I would consider hiring Frank Abagnale as aconsultant for my company depending on what the nature of the companywas. If I had a company that was responsible for managing finance orfunds, I would not use him. There would be too much negative mediaextension and exposure should things not go according to plan. If Ineeded security for a company that just developed products, I wouldconsider hiring him. The reason I would consider is that his crime wascommitted while young and he has spent most of his life since then beinga productive citizen. He has established a career on helping companiesand turned his life around. I would consider hiring him because othercompanies have already taken the risk. He is now somewhat famous due tothe movie about him, so he can’t slip around anymore undetected. He hasdemonstrated that he has valuable knowledge to share in the corporateworld.