“Hack the Pentagon” Program Revealed By The DOD

In an effort to enhance its defenses against cyberattacks, the US Department of Defense is planning to ask security professionals to “Hack the Pentagon.” The move is similar to programs implemented by commercial software firms offering rewards to hackers who can find security issues with their software. The move of the DOD is the first program of the federal government dealing with finding issues with cyber security.

The program is set to be launched in April and will ask computer security professionals to scrutinize public web pages of the DOD and look for vulnerabilities and potential attack points. However, there are some limitations of the program. The classified networks of the DOD cannot be accessed by participants and they will not be allowed to launch actual attacks on the public-facing sites of the department.

Participants in the “Hack the Pentagon” will come from crowdsourcing sites and will be asked to register and allow their backgrounds to be checked. After they are accepted into the program, they will be given access to a specific system selected by the department for a specific period of time.

“Hack the Pentagon” Program Revealed By The DOD - image credit: en.wikipedia.org

Secretary Ash Carter of the Department of Defense has been talking about the importance of close collaboration between the department and Silicon Valley. He also highlighted the significance of following the lead of tech startups in their operations and innovation.

The new DoD program is the result of the Defense Digital Service initiative. The service is composed of engineers connected with the US Digital Service, which aims to enhance the technological capabilities of the DOD. The Defense Digital Service was launched by the secretary in November.

Carter said he is always challenging DOD personnel to think outside of the box as well as inviting ethical hackers to test the cybersecurity of the Pentagon. Additional details of the “Hack the Pentagon” program will be released by the DOD soon along with the application process.

Posted by George Daniels on Thursday March 03 2016, 12:56 PM EDT. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Technology. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0