DoD Picks HackerOne To Run Its Historic Bug Bounty Pilot

The US Department of Defense has selected bug bounty and vulnerability coordination vendor HackerOne to run the federal government’s first-ever bug bounty program.

The “Hack The Pentagon” pilot program, which invites ethical hackers to find bugs within DoD public websites and ultimately enhance the security of those sites, will run from April 18 to May 12, 2016, the DoD announced yesterday. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter first announced the program last month at The RSA Conference.

HackerOne will identify qualifying participants for the so-called “Hack The Pentagon” pilot, where white-hat hackers find and report vulnerabilities in the DoD Web pages. "Collaboration and transparency with external finders has become essential to securing connected software on the Internet,” said Marten Mickos, CEO of HackerOne. HackerOne has previously worked with Facebook, Microsoft, and other companies in their bug bounty programs.

Critical DoD computer systems will not be part of the vulnerability-finding program, and participants will be screened via an application process. Individual rewards for vulnerability discoveries will be based on various factors, and payments will come out of the program's $150,000 in funding, according to the DoD

"This initiative will put the department's cybersecurity to the test in an innovative but responsible way," said Defense Secretary Ash Carter.  "I encourage hackers who want to bolster our digital defenses to join the competition and take their best shot."  

Read more on the DoD’s announcement and see the Hack The Pentagon program website for further details.