CYBER ATTACKS, CYBER ETHICS

A crippling ransomware attack on one of the largest fuel distribution networks in the US has brought into sharp focus the cyber threats facing infrastructure of national importance. The taking of the Colonial Pipeline brought the authorities’ worst fears to life. The ransomware attack disabled the 5,500-mile network, causing fuel shortages in the south-eastern states of the US and prompting the Biden administration to declare a state of emergency. Although the Colonial Pipeline Company’s CEO, Joseph Blount, controversially paid the $4.4m (£3.2m) ransom, the network was out of action for a week.

Let’s talk about automation. We can observe that more ‘crucial systems of strategic importance’ in our industry such as marine storage terminals, refineries, chemical production and distribution sectors are being maximally automated. This increases the risk of cyber-attacks. Therefore, our course on Cyberethics is valuable for those who are perhaps not fully aware of human actions in Artificial Intelligence, Robots, Algorithms, Cyber Crime & Security.

Learning about how those technologies impact our business and lives, individually and globally, is essential for all those managing and operating our local and global energy and transport infrastructure. What are the risks we need to be vigilant about? It implies both many positive impacts and outputs from new technologies but also specific and global risks that we need to anticipate. Not all automation is moral and ethical. Decision making based on the artificially produced conclusions needs human contemplation, because inevitably dilemmas will occur.

The cyberspace permeates all dimensions of our contemporary life. It influences the way we travel, the way we remain in connection with others, communicate and harvest information, and ultimately how we organise and run our business. Who are we as humans amidst the cyberspace?

Our online course addresses the salient ethical questions in relation to security, technologies and artificial intelligence, freedom and responsible citizenship in economics and day-to-day business. The units include reading and study material of high actuality. Participants will benefit from full and free access to the Globethics.net online library with a plethora of publications in several collection areas of applied ethics. The course is based on the publication Cyber Ethics 4.0: Serving Humanity with Values written by Christoph Stückelberger and Pavan Duggal, and will be lectured by two high profiled and experienced course instructors. It will help our participants to:

• Recognise the main ethical aspects in cyber environment

• Apply ethics, core values to all decisions that are made within cyber space

• Analyse cyber space management approaches and models from the ethical perspective

• Create new principles of behaviour in cyber space that meet global ethical  principles and rules.

Our industries are ‘complex’ systems of business. Automating them may be attractive, because many believe that if an algorithm is handling things, no human error can be expected. However, it is wise to understand that human beings write code and AI copies human behaviour. AI can’t be programmed to self-reflect and does not automatically ask this simple question: is it right or wrong? Without cyber ethics our industry remains vulnerable.

 

Those interested in learning more about this training course should contact Arend van Campen, founder of TankTerminalTraining, at arendvc@tankterminaltraining.com. More information on the company’s activities can be found at www.tankterminaltraining.com.