Strategies

The Ethical and Legal Dilemmas of Threat Researchers

F5 Labs' Ray Pompon writes for HelpNetSecurity, discussing the grey areas of threat research and some common issues researchers encounter.
July 12, 2018
1 min. read

Threat intelligence is mainstreaming into a de-facto everyday tool of cyber-defense. But all that intelligence must be collected, analyzed, and prepared by someone. Enter threat researchers, the advanced scouts of cybersecurity. They are becoming more numerous and conspicuous as more intelligence on illicit hacker activity is demanded. Threat researchers trawl through the dark web, pick apart malware, reverse engineer exploits, track outbreaks across the Internet, and set up honeypots to surveil attacker activity.

They also find themselves weaseling around in the slippery space between what is acceptable and what is forbidden. To get to the truth on the ground, they can find themselves using stealth, misdirection, and even outright deception. This is when threat researchers can find themselves in unpredictable legal and ethical situations with consequences that they and their employers never anticipated. I’m going to pose a series of scenarios based on actual threat researcher incidents to illustrate these dilemmas.

Read the full article published May 21, 2018 here: https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2018/05/21/threat-research-ethical-legal-dilemmas/ by Help Net Security.

Authors & Contributors
Raymond Pompon (Author)

More from Learning Center

Forward and Reverse Shells
Forward and Reverse Shells
09/15/2023 article 5 min. read
Web Shells: Understanding Attackers’ Tools and Techniques
Web Shells: Understanding Attackers’ Tools and Techniques
07/06/2023 article 6 min. read
What Is Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA)?
What Is Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA)?
07/05/2022 article 13 min. read