White hackers discovered 122 vulnerabilities in the US Department of Homeland Security system

Ethical hackers earned a total of $125 600 due to the Hack DHS bug bounty program

30.04.2022 - 09:20

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What’s new? The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reported that white hackers were able to discover 122 vulnerabilities in the agency’s external systems. The bugs were found due to the Hack DHS bug bounty program. In total, more than 450 researchers earned $125 600 from it. A single reward can reach up to $5 000 depending on the level of vulnerability.

The DHS’s press release

More details about Hack DHS. This reward system is based on the same principle as the “Hack the Pentagon” program. Hack DHS was launched in December 2021 and participating hackers are required to provide detailed information on the vulnerabilities and how they can be exploited. The vulnerabilities discovered are then checked and addressed by DHS experts.

“The enthusiastic participation by the security researcher community during the first phase of Hack DHS enabled us to find and remediate critical vulnerabilities before they could be exploited,” said DHS Chief Information Officer Eric Hysen.

What happened before? In April, Sky Mavis, the developer of the Axie Infinity game, launched a similar bounty program for detecting bugs in smart contracts and blockchain. For detecting serious vulnerabilities the reward can be as much as $1 million.

The decision came after the Ronin Network sidechain was compromised. Hackers managed to withdraw more than $625 million in cryptocurrency (173 600 ETH and 25,5 million USDC).

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