Reuters reports that “the Pentagon said on Wednesday it would invite vetted outside hackers to test the cybersecurity of some public U.S. Defense Department websites as part of a pilot project next month, in the first-ever such program offered by the federal government.”  

“‘Hack the Pentagon’ is modeled after similar competitions known as “bug bounties” that are conducted by big U.S. companies, including United Continental Holdings Inc (UAL.N) to discover gaps in the security of their networks.”  

“Such programs allow cyber experts to find and identify problems before malicious hackers can exploit them, saving money and time in the event of damaging network breaches.”