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Responsible Disclosure

What is Responsible Disclosure?

A security vulnerability reporting practice where researchers privately inform the affected vendor and allow time for patching before public disclosure.

Information Security

Each of these is named in at least one of the same controls as responsible disclosure. The number is how many controls name both.

What the standards actually require on responsible disclosure

Requirements naming responsible disclosure across 6 standards, quoted from the control text.

There should be transparency and responsible disclosure so people can understand when they are significantly impacted by AI and can find out when an AI system is engaging with them, with timely, reasonable justifications for outcomes.

AUAIE-6 · Transparency and explainability

A 'security.txt' file is hosted for each of an organisation's internet-facing website domains to assist in the responsible disclosure of vulnerabilities in the organisation's products and services.

ISM-1717 · A 'security.txt' file is hosted for each of an organisation's internet-facing website doma
DORA1 control

Financial entities shall have crisis communication plans enabling responsible disclosure of major ICT-related incidents or vulnerabilities to clients, counterparts and the public as appropriate, and designate communication policies for internal staff and exter...

DORA-Art.14 · Communication

HKMA C-RAF iCAST (Intelligence-led Cyber Attack Simulation Testing) - mandatory for HIGH inherent risk AIs + optional for medium tier + modeled on UK CBEST + ECB TIBER-EU (verified separately in this corpus) + intelligence-led red team testing methodology.

HKMA-CRAF-iCAST-RedTeam-PurpleTeam-IntelLed · HKMA C-RAF iCAST (Intelligence-Led Cyber Attack Simulation Testing) for HIGH Inherent Risk AIs
ISMAP (Japan)1 control

ISMAP Cloud Operations covers the day-to-day security operations of cloud services. (1) Cloud Security Monitoring and Logging: 24x7 Security Operations Center (SOC) + SIEM Security Information and Event Management (Splunk + Microsoft Sentinel + IBM QRadar + Su...

ISMAP-CloudOperations-Monitoring-Logging-IncidentResponse-NISC-Reporting-Vulnerability-Change-SLA · ISMAP Cloud Operations - Security Monitoring + SIEM + Logging + Incident Response + NISC Reporting + Vulnerability Management + Penetration Testing + Change Management + SLA Management

Questions people ask about responsible disclosure

What is Responsible Disclosure?
A security vulnerability reporting practice where researchers privately inform the affected vendor and allow time for patching before public disclosure.
Why is Responsible Disclosure important for compliance?
Responsible Disclosure is a key concept in Information Security. Understanding responsible disclosure helps organizations meet regulatory requirements, reduce risk, and demonstrate due diligence during audits. Our compliance platform maps 686 frameworks with 311K cross-framework control mappings.
Which compliance frameworks address Responsible Disclosure?
Responsible Disclosure appears in the requirement text of Japan AI Guidelines, Australia AI Ethics Framework, Australian Information Security Manual, DORA, HKMA Cyber Resilience Assessment Framework (C-RAF). Across these standards we have identified 7 controls that name it directly, each linked to the control text on the compliance platform.
Where can I learn more about Responsible Disclosure?
Explore our compliance framework pages to see how responsible disclosure applies across different standards and regulations. Our implementation guides provide step-by-step guidance, and the compliance platform offers AI-powered analysis of how this concept maps across 686 frameworks.

See how Responsible Disclosure applies across compliance frameworks

Our platform maps 686 frameworks with 311K cross-framework control mappings. Explore how this concept is addressed across standards.

Written and maintained by Gerard Blokdyk, The Art of Service.