Talkspace threatened to sue a security researcher over bug report

guest · Mar 9, 2020

Talkspace threatened to sue a security researcher over bug report
March 9, 2020
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/09/talkspace-cease-desist/

A security researcher said he was forced to take down a blog post describing an apparent bug in Talkspace’s website that gave him a year’s subscription for free, after the company rejected his findings and sent the researcher a legal threat.

Jackson’s case is just the latest example of security researchers facing legal threats for their work. Months ago, aerospace security researcher Chris Kubecka said she was threatened by Boeing after finding a security issue on a plane. Two security researchers were also prosecuted last year amid claims they overstepped the limits of their penetration test at an Iowa courthouse. The case was later dropped.

Talkspace does not offer a way for security researchers to submit bugs.
Within hours of Jackson publishing his findings on his blog — which TechCrunch has seen — Talkspace sent Jackson a cease and desist letter, accusing the researcher of defaming Talkspace “by broadcasting untruths” in his blog post.
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We’ve published the cease and desist letter. The letter did not address the technical claims made by Jackson in his blog post.

Many companies nowadays embrace security researchers by offering bug reporting programs, which reward or pay researchers for finding security flaws and other bugs that could otherwise go unreported and exploited by malicious hackers.
Other companies, like Dropbox, Mozilla and Tesla, go further by offering “safe harbor” provisions by promising not to take legal action against researchers who act in good faith.
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