The US Department of Defense’s Defense Digital Service (DDS) team pioneered the Hack the Pentagon bug bounty pilot program with strong support from Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. The pilot ran from April 18, 2016 until May 12, 2016 and exceeded all expectations.

Hack the Pentagon was the first bug bounty program in the history of the Federal Government. The Department of Defense selected HackerOne as its partner to advise, operate, and execute Hack the Pentagon.

On March 31, 2016, interested participants began registration to compete in the "Hack the Pentagon” pilot challenge.

The pilot program was designed to identify and resolve security vulnerabilities within Defense Department public facing websites through crowdsourced security.