Cybersecurity Research: Addressing the Legal Barriers and Disincentives
Cybersecurity Research: Addressing the Legal Barriers and Disincentives. Report of a Workshop convened by the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, the UC Berkeley School of Information and the International Computer Science Institute under a grant from the National Science Foundation
Abstract
Researchers associated with the UC Berkeley School of Information and School of Law, the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, and the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) released a workshop report detailing legal barriers and other disincentives to cybersecurity research, and recommendations to address them. The workshop held at Berkeley in April, supported by the National Science Foundation, brought together leading computer scientists and lawyers, from academia, civil society, and industry, to map out legal barriers to cybersecurity research and propose a set of concrete solutions.
The workshop report provides important background for the NTIA-convened multistakeholder process exploring security vulnerability disclosure, which launched today at Berkeley. The report documents the importance of cybersecurity research, the chilling effect caused by current regulations, and the diversity of the vulnerability landscape that counsels against both single and fixed practices around vulnerability disclosures.