Pentagon hackers to get government payout

The US Pentagon plans to pay out rewards to hackers who participated in the Hack the Pentagon initiative by the end of the month.

A spokesperson for the Department of Defense confirmed to DefenseNews that payouts will be allocated to around 90 individuals.

The initiative sought verified hackers to take part in a bug bounty competition targeting certain Defense websites, a common initiative for private technology companies but the first such competition of its kind for a US government agency.

Reward sizes will vary from US$100 ($138) to US$15,000 and will be paid out on a first-come first-serve basis. This will require officials to sort through the bug reports to ensure that the first participant to identify a vulnerability will receive the credit.

The program commenced on 31 March and ended last week. The competition attracted a total participation of 1410. The Pentagon had been expecting just 500 or so entrants.

Based on the success of the competition, the US government is looking into expanding the program to cover other major government websites.

Image courtesy of David B. Gleason under CC