Hack the Pentagon Archives

Ongoing bug-bounty pilot pinpoints many vulnerabilities in DOD’s cyberspace

Through Hack U.S., the Pentagon is offering cash rewards for exposures of digital weaknesses.

Jul 8, 2022 By Brandi Vincent

DOD expands vulnerability disclosure program to contracting base in pilot

Forty-one defense contractors in the small-to-medium-size range participated in a vulnerability disclosure pilot that resulted in 1,015 reports, of which 401 were validated by system owners for…

May 2, 2022 By Billy Mitchell

Army Cyber Command patch. (U.S. Army Cyber Command / Flickr)

U.S. Army brings back bug bounty for round two

It's the ninth bug bounty challenge held at the DOD overall.

Oct 10, 2019 By Tajha Chappellet-Lanier

Defense Digital Service Director Chris Lynch speaks during an industry event in Arlington, Va. March 7, 2018. (DoD photo by EJ Hersom)

Chris Lynch departing Defense Digital Service

Lynch will be succeeded by Brett Goldstein, a Navy adviser whom acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan recruited to report directly to him.

Apr 23, 2019 By Billy Mitchell

Staff Sgt. Alek Albrecht participates in a Network War Bridge Course at the 39th Information Operations Squadron Sept. 19, 2014, Hurlburt Field, Fla. Albrecht is practicing to hack into a simulated network to better understand what techniques real hackers may use when attempting to infiltrate Air Force networks. Air Force Space Command provides trained and ready cyber forces to the warfighter through 24th Air Force. Albrecht is a Air Force Network Operations and Security Center enterprise network technician. (U.S. Air Force photo/Airman 1st Class Krystal Ardrey)

Air Force opens itself up to hacking, again

It's the "most inclusive" bug bounty program to date, meaning that foreign nationals — except those from China, Russia, Iran or North Korea — are welcome to…

Nov 6, 2018 By Tajha Chappellet-Lanier

The Defense Department issued a custom “challenge coin” for one of the Hack the Pentagon pilot programs in 2016. (Defense Digital Service / Twitter)

DOD expands Hack the Pentagon program to cover hardware, systems

DOD tapped cybersecurity firms Synack, HackerOne and Bugcrowd to provide vetted hackers for continual assessments of defense websites, hardware and physical systems.

Oct 24, 2018 By Carten Cordell

Vicki Hildebrand, Department of Transportation — Vicki Hildebrand participates in a FedTalks panel discussion Aug. 21, 2018, in Washington, D.C. (FedScoop)

DOT grateful for extra hands that bug bounty program provided, CIO says

The department recently joined the trend of federal bug bounty programs, which boost cybersecurity resources in ways that traditional methods probably can't.

Sep 7, 2018 By Carten Cordell

Marines sit at a Joint Tactical Common Operation Picture Workstation, or JTCW. The Marine Corps opened up a bug bounty to find flaws in public facing Marine Corps systems.

Marines launch bug bounty at Las Vegas event

The Hack the Marine Corps program launched Aug. 12 with a live hacking event in Las Vegas.

Aug 14, 2018 By Billy Mitchell

Pentagon considers continuous bug bounties that could test sensitive, private systems

"Assets could include closed networks, software-embedded devices, proprietary source code, or other private or internal systems not generally accessible via the public Internet," a new RFI says.

May 21, 2018 By Billy Mitchell

Inside DOD’s latest Hack the Pentagon bug bounty

This time the Pentagon wants hackers to find vulnerabilities in the Defense Travel System's public-facing websites.

Apr 3, 2018 By FedScoop Staff