Hack The Pentagon Site Promotes The Importance Of Bug Bounties To US Military

If you were browsing the web and came across a page with the words “Hack the Pentagon” and a gruesome skull design, you may wonder if you were actually on a valid site.

If you hacked the Pentagon, you would typically be in serious trouble.

But if you’re a certified “ethical hacker” who has signed up for the “Hack the Pentagon” program that the Directorate for Digital Services (DDS) has been operating since 2016, that isn’t the case.

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The project eventually led to the DDS operating more than 40 bug bounty programs that have highlighted more than 2,100 vulnerabilities. The campaign first offered rewards of up to US $150,000 for security researchers who discovered security weaknesses on DoD websites.

Hack The Pentagon Site Promotes The Importance Of Bug Bounties To US Military

As for the initial Hack the Pentagon initiative, that expanded in 2021 from a carefully chosen list of specific websites to include all publicly-accessible Department of Defense systems – including everything from databases to IoT devices to industrial control systems.

This week, the DDS has launched an official “Hack the Pentagon” website, with the intent of promoting the success of bug bounty programs across the US military.

And yes, it has a big skull on its homepage.

It’s good to see bureaucratic institutions like the US military adopted the best practices now widely adopted in the commercial world. In recent years more and more organisations have seen a real benefit in running bug bounty programs that work with security researchers to find and resolve vulnerabilities in a timely fashion.

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“Through Hack the Pentagon, we’re building a global talent pipeline for cybersecurity experts to contribute to our national defense outside of traditional government career paths,” said Jinyoung Englund, Acting Director of the DDS.

Any security researchers who find a vulnerability are invited to visit the webpage of the Department of Defense’s Vulnerability Disclosure Program.