[2][3] In September 2012, Bellovin was appointed chief technologist for the United States Federal Trade Commission, replacing Edward W. Felten, who returned to Princeton University.

[8] He later suggested that Gene Spafford should create the Phage mailing list as a response to the Morris Worm.

Bellovin later was security area codirector, and a member of the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) from 2002–2004.

[11] In 2015, Bellovin was part of a team of proponents that included Matt Blaze, J. Alex Halderman, Nadia Heninger, and Andrea M. Matwyshyn who successfully proposed a security research exemption to Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

[8] Bellovin is the author and co-author of several books, RFCs and technical papers, including: As of October 21, 2020, his publications have been cited 19,578 times, and he has an h-index of 59.