Colonial Piipeline CEO Tells Why He Paid Hackers a $4.4Million Ransom

TEXTBOOK:

Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making &Cases, 12th Ed.

Chapter 5 discusses the overall ethical decision-makingframework. We start with ethical awareness which is theability to perceive whether a situation or a decision has anethical dimension. We are able to identify the ethical issueby referring to the foundational values we learned in Chapter3: Honesty, Integrity, and Fairness. Then we focus onethical issue intensity which considers how important these issuesare to an organization (high - very important; low - not thatimportant), and how the organization wants employees and otherstakeholders to behave when those issues arise. We then applythe individual and organizational factors as well as theopportunity in order for us to fully evaluate the situation anddetermine a rational solution.

I have also provided an alternate ethicaldecision-making framework that takes the same approach but in amore structured manner.

The Wall Street Journal article below discusses how theoperator of the Colonial Pipeline learned they were hacked on May7, when an employee found a ransom note from hackers on acontrol-room computer. By that night, the company’s chief executiveofficer came to a difficult conclusion: He had to pay. JosephBlount, CEO of Colonial Pipeline Co., told The Wall Street Journalthat he authorized the ransom payment of $4.4 million becauseexecutives were unsure how badly the cyberattack had breached itssystems, and consequently, how long it would take to bring thepipeline back.

Read through the article below colonial pipeline CEOTells Why He Paid Hackers a $4.4 Million Ransom and answer thefollowing questions:

1. Make an ethical argument in support of the CEO’sdecision to pay the ransom. Address the stakeholders that stand tobenefit most from paying the ransom.

2. Make an ethical argument against the CEO’s decision topay the ransom. Address the stakeholders that stand to be mostnegatively impacted as a result of paying theransom.

Word count: 150-200 words perquestion.