President Trump has signed two bipartisan bills into law establishing a bug bounty pilot program at the Department of Homeland Security and will require the agency to disclose all cyber vulnerabilities. The two bills introduced by Sens. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, aim to strengthen cybersecurity at DHS, Hassan’s office said Friday.Â
One legislation will leverage ethical hackers to find vulnerabilities in networks and information technology infrastructure at DHS. The Hack DHS Act will establish a bug bounty program that will use the similar approach of the Department of Defense and major tech companies. The second bill from Hassan and Portman will also require the DHS to launch a program managingn its vulnerabilities. The Public-Private Cybersecurity Cooperation Act aims to help the agency speed up the process to fix IT issues by regularly disclosing cyber vulnerabilities through the program.
“Our legislation draws upon the vast expertise of hackers and security experts in our country to identify vulnerabilities and report them to the people in positions to fix those flaws in our systems,†Portman said.