Attorneys won't provide legal advice for free or for a small fee, doctors won't look at your kid's rash, and really, cybersecurity professionals shouldn't be looking at people's computers.
One reason is the risk of being sued when there's a mistake -- you are asking them to accept a considerable financial risk for free.
The second reason is the a high chance of a mistake.
The second reason is the a high chance of a mistake.
Let's ask a lawyer "Is port scanning legal?". What I don't tell them is that I'm running nmap with a script that also automatically logs onto the system, so when I get arrested for CFAA violations, I sue the lawyer who told me it was legal for legal malpractice.
Lawyers don't know the answer offhand whether port scanning is legal. They'd have to spend time researching it, and even after that research, the answer isn't going to be yes/no, but a set of risks.
It's like the Lauri Drew case. Is it illegal to create a fake Facebook account violating their Terms of Service. The answer is "no" until your daughter uses that account to bully another 14 year old student into committing suicide, at which point the answer is "yes, illegal".
Can you quickly look at my kids rash and tell me if it's serious? Well, your family physician with all the kids records may have a very different answer than your neighbor who glances at it for 5 minutes. The correct answer is "you should really talk to your own doctor".
Part of the problem is that we browbeat lawyers into delivering the answer we want. I want to portscan, when I ask you whether it's legal, I'm going to continue arguing with you why it should be legal until you agree with me.
And it's all very tedious because outsiders don't understand how the law works. Sure, portscan ought (or ought not) be legal -- but that's for politicians to fix by change what it law says. What the law ought to say doesn't change what it actually says.
So you asking the professional to do what's (1) annoying for them, (2) a lot more work, (3) an answer that will likely be wrong because of lack of information, and (4) a legal/financial risk to them when their answer is wrong.
This is an excellent additional reasons:
