DOD to invite security experts to Hack the Pentagon

The U.S. Department of Defense plans to ask computer security experts to Hack the Pentagon as part of a push to improve its cyber defenses.

The initiative is similar to the bug bounty programs run by commercial software companies seeking to reward hackers who report security vulnerabilities in code. The DOD says it’s the first cyber bug bounty program in the history of the federal government.

The DOD program, which will launch in April, will ask participants to examine its public Web pages, searching out vulnerabilities and attack launching points.

But the program will only go that far. The DOD’s classified networks will be off-limits to the participants, and they won’t be free to launch actual attacks on any of the department’s public-facing sites.

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