Learning about vulnerability researchers' experiences

Making vulnerability discovery more approachable

Study Description

We are interviewing vulnerability disocvery professionals from underrepresented populations, examining how and why they join the vulnerability discovery marketplace; whether they feel accepted and supported by the broader community; and what distinct challenges they face when joining/participating in the vulnerability discovery community. By understanding how people join and participate in the vulnerability discovery community and the challenges they face, we hope to produce recommendations for businesses, community leaders, and educators to increase diversity in the vulnerability discovery market.

If selected, you will be given a $30.00 Amazon gift card for a 60-minute interview via your preferred communication tool (e.g., Zoom, Jitsi, phone call). We are very flexible and happy to accomodate almost any requests. If a video-enabled platform is chosen for the call, video will not be recorded and is not necessary for this study. We will protect the privacy of any information shared during the interviews. Participants may withdraw or choose to not answer any question throughout the interview. All gathered data will be encrypted and securely stored without any personally identifiable information, only accessible by the research team. Your anonymity will be protected in any reported results. If you are interested in participating in this study, please click the button below to take a short (<5 min) screening survey to determine if you are eligible.

If you would like to participate, but feel uncomfortable completing the survey, please email Kelsey Fulton to discuss potential alternatives.

Researchers

Kelsey Fulton

PhD Student
University of Maryland
Computer Science Department

kfulton@umd.edu

Daniel Votipka

Assistant Professor
Tufts University
Computer Science Department

dvotipka@cs.tufts.edu

Marshini Chetty

Assistant Professor
University of Chicago
Computer Science Department

marshini@uchicago.edu

Michelle Mazurek

Associate Professor
University of Maryland
Computer Science Department

mmazurek@umd.edu

Kevin Song

Undergraduate Student
University of Chicago
Computer Science Department

ksong814@uchicago.edu

Chloé Messdaghi

Founder
WeAreHackerz, WoSEC,
and Hacking is NOT a Crime

.

FAQ

1. WHY ARE YOU CONTACTING ME?

We are interviewing vulnerability disocvery professionals from underrepresented populations, examining how and why they join the vulnerability discovery marketplace and what distinct challenges they might face when joining/participating in the vulnerability discovery community. Our end goal is to provide guidance on how to make the field more welcoming. We are seeking the participation of both experienced and novice security researchers to get a complete picture of the community.

2. WHO ARE YOU?

A group of academic researchers who are passionate about cybersecurity research, improving vulnerability discovery, and making software safer.

3. WHAT HAPPENS IF I WANT TO PARTICIPATE?

If you choose to participate, you can follow this link to take the survey, which will ask you a series of questions about your background and vulnerability discovery experience. We will invite a subset of the survey participants to online interviews. Your responses will be analyzed anonymously, and we will publish anonymous aggregated results in peer-reviewed, academic publications.

4. I AM CONCERNED ABOUT MY DATA SECURITY AND PRIVACY!

Fantastic! So are we! All your data will be kept confidential and will be accessible only to the researchers themselves. We are also very flexible regarding the communication mehtods used. We only need to collect audio recordings of our conversation, but how we do that is up to you. If you have any concerns, please contact Kelsey Fulton and she can discuss specifics and make any particular arrangements.

5. WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?

Our goal is to provide guidance to companies, community leaders, and educators to make the vulnerability discovery market more approachable for everyone by better understanding the challenges people actually face. We will also give interview participants a $30 Amazon gift card as a way of saying thank you for your time.

6. WHAT HAPPENS IF I DO NOT WANT TO PARTICIPATE?

Nothing, you can just ignore this survey. Your information will not be recorded. Also, if you choose to participate, but change your mind later, you can withdraw at any point and we will delete any collected data.