The U.S. Department of Defense launched the first cyber Bug Bounty Program in the history of the federal government in March. Around 1,400 white hat (ethical) hackers participated in the program and were awarded up to $15,000 for disclosures of the most destructive vulnerabilities in DoDs networks. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter: “They are helping us to be more secure at a fraction of the cost” The program was launched between April 18 and May 12, 2016 and was hosted on bug bounty platform HackerOne.
Source: https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/hack-pentagon.html