Cybersecurity

U.S. Air Force Successfully Hacked By ‘Battalion’ Of 60 Hackers

During four weeks towards the end of 2019, a total of 60 hackers managed to hack the U.S. Air Force.

Between October 23 and November 20, what was described as "a battalion of hackers" by Dr. Michael Parker, CIO, and deputy chief of U.S. Air Force staff for manpower, personnel and services, took aim at the Air Force Virtual Data Center.

This really is not as bad as it first seems. The hackers were of the white hat variety and taking part in the fourth Hack the Air Force challenge. A challenge, operated in partnership between the U.S. Department of Defense and the HackerOne hacking platform, designed to strengthen security posture rather than weaken it.

Hack the Air Force 4.0 was, as the name suggests, the fourth hacker-powered challenge to probe the cybersecurity of U.S. Air Force assets. However, it is the tenth challenge in all that has been completed since the first Hack the Pentagon project was launched back in 2016 and led to the Department of Defense establishing a vulnerability disclosure policy.