An Empirical Study of Government Vulnerability Disclosure Programs: Multi-Dimensional Evaluation of U.S. Federal Agencies

This research presents a quantitative descriptive evaluation of Vulnerability Disclosure Programs (VDPs) implemented by selected U.S. federal agencies. The study applies the Government Vulnerability Disclosure Program Feature Framework (GVFF), a multi-dimensional evaluation framework comprising eight dimensions and 52 measurable features, to systematically assess publicly available VDP policy characteristics. The study evaluates a sample of 12 U.S. federal agencies and develops an agency-level dataset to support structured comparison of VDP maturity and implementation characteristics. The analysis identifies observed patterns and variations across the study sample while acknowledging the limitations associated with sample size, public-policy documentation, feature coding, and the descriptive nature of the methodology. This Zenodo record includes the complete research paper, the GVFF master dataset, the GVFF framework documentation, and supporting agency-selection materials. The materials are provided to support transparency, reproducibility, and future research on government vulnerability disclosure programs.