Cybersecurity in the Realm of Legal Philosophy: where mankind confronts cyberspace

Abstract

Amidst the ongoing advancement of technology in the digital era, it is inevitably known that cybercrime has often been conducted in the internet sphere to acquire targeted information through unauthorized methods. Cybersecurity is the mean to combat against this malicious access through cybercrime. Many wonder how far this cybersecurity can go without abusing its power and authority.

          Some facets of cybersecurity may infringe on fundamental values such as equality, fairness, privacy, or freedom when overemphasized; however, taking cybersecurity for granted could undermine individuals' trust and confidence in many aspects of life. For instance, while cybersecurity is used as a tool to protect the data and privacy of individual, it also facilitates more access through private information by spontaneously giving those data to cybersecurity technicians as a pathway to identify malicious activities.

          Accordingly, cybersecurity raises a plethora of ethical issues as to whether it can be conducted or not, assuming that the conduct itself violates the fundamental rights of engaged individuals, which respectively leads to another question as to which extent can cybersecurity be implemented while balancing the benefits and the drawbacks to preserve those fundamental rights from being violated.

          This article is thus written to envisage how cybersecurity shall be implemented and to guide the answers to the questions raised above by analyzing the issues through the lens of legal philosophy in the ambit of natural law school and positivism school of jurisprudence.