SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Department of Defense has selected HackerOne, the leading bug bounty and vulnerability coordination provider, for its highly-anticipated “Hack the Pentagon” bug bounty pilot. This marks the first bug bounty program in the history of the U.S. federal government. The contract calls for HackerOne to enhance the department's cybersecurity by inviting qualifying hackers to participate in a 20-day bug bounty pilot beginning April 18, 2016. The registration site is now live and can be accessed at https://hackerone.com/hackthepentagon.
Bug bounty programs have been embraced as an effective security practice for identifying vulnerabilities in Internet-connected systems. These community-led programs empower and incentivize technically skilled citizens to find and report security vulnerabilities so they can be safely resolved. Under the program, HackerOne will identify qualified participants to conduct vulnerability identification and analysis on select web properties. The “Hack the Pentagon” initiative is being led by the department’s Defense Digital Service, launched by Secretary Carter last November.
"Collaboration and transparency with external finders has become essential to securing connected software on the Internet,” said Marten Mickos, CEO, HackerOne. “Embracing the hacker community is not only a watershed move by the Pentagon, among the world’s most powerful organizations, but also signals deeply promising progress for all of software security.”
With greater than ever emphasis on cybersecurity as part of the national defense agenda, the program will help the department improve the security of valuable government systems. The bug bounty program is modeled after similar incentive programs conducted by some of the nation’s most sophisticated technology companies to improve the security of networks, products and digital services.
HackerOne’s team helped pioneer community-powered solutions at Facebook, Microsoft and MySQL, and built the most advanced platform for vulnerability coordination and bug bounty programs. The company has helped its more than 500 customers like Uber, General Motors, Square, Snapchat, Twitter and Adobe fix over 20,000 security vulnerabilities and reward more than 2,500 successful hackers in excess of $6.5 million.
For more information on HackerOne, visit: https://hackerone.com. For more information on Department of Defense’s Hack the Pentagon program, visit: https://hackerone.com/hackthepentagon. Specific details of the pilot program, including applicable technology, rules of engagement and awards will be available to participants in the coming weeks.
About HackerOne
HackerOne is the world’s leading bug bounty and vulnerability coordination platform, connecting organizations with the world's largest community of highly-qualified security researchers. More than 500 organizations, including General Motors, Adobe, Uber, Twitter, Yahoo!, Square, Dropbox and the CERT Coordination Center trust HackerOne to find critical software vulnerabilities before criminals can exploit them. HackerOne is headquartered in San Francisco with a development office in the Netherlands. For more information, please visit https://hackerone.com.