Dear hackers: The U.S. government wants you. Or, at the very least, the Department of Defense’s research wing wants to pay you to help it block cyber threats, a project manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said Thursday.
Former hacker Peiter Zatko announced the start of a fund-the-hackers program, called Cyber Fast Track, in a keynote talk at the Black Hat conference, which is aimed at hackers and computer security experts. The program began officially late Wednesday, he said.
Experts say the government has done a lousy job in the past of getting money to security researchers quickly enough for them to actually help mitigate cyber threats. Or the feds have avoided dealing with hackers entirely.