The United States Air Force (USAF) is the aerial warfare service branch of the U.S. Armed Forces.
As its second youngest branch and the fourth in order of precedence, the U.S. Air Force has missions for air superiority, global integrated intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control.
But that doesn't mean it is hackproof.
It was revealed that during the last four weeks of 2019, "a battalion of hackers" managed to hack its servers.
According to Dr. Michael Parker, CIO, and deputy chief of U.S. Air Force staff for manpower, personnel and services, a total of 60 hackers managed to hack the U.S. Air Force between October 23 and November 20.
The hackers however, weren't 'black hat' hackers, meaning that they didn't breach the servers for malicious purposes.
According to the U.S. Department of Defense, the hackers were 'white hat' hackers that took part in the fourth Hack the Air Force challenge, an event that was called the 'Hack the Air Force 4.0'.
The challenge which was hosted in partnership between the U.S. Department of Defense and the HackerOne hacking platform, was designed to strengthen the security posture of the servers rather than to weaken them.
This fourth hacker-powered challenge was meant to see how external parties can probe to different systems, including the cybersecurity of U.S. Air Force assets.
Hack the Air Force 4.0 is the tenth challenge in all that has been completed since the first Hack the Pentagon project was launched back in 2016, which led to the Department of Defense to establishing a vulnerability disclosure policy.
According to HackerOne on its press release, the 60 hackers taking part found 460 vulnerabilities. The hackers earned $290,000 (£232,000) in bounties for their efforts.
The vulnerabilities were found within the pool of cloud-based servers and systems known as the U.S. Air Force Virtual Data Center.
"It is the U.S. Air Force’s goal to be leaders, innovators and warriors in air, space and cyberspace," said Dr. Michael Parker, adding that "partnering with HackerOne will allow us to take the necessary risks to harden our defenses with the assurance of a battalion of hackers on our side."
Since that first Hack the Army program which ran at the end of 2016, ethical hackers found and helped patch at least 12,000 vulnerabilities.
"The U.S. Air Force provides an example of the proven impact of collaborating with hackers to bolster security," said Jon Bottarini, the federal technical program manager lead at HackerOne, suggesting that the 12,000 vulnerabilities might never have been found by the good guys if it weren't for the program.
