The Ministry of Defence’s announcement last week that it has engaged an international company to get 300 whitehat hackers to test the ministry’s major internet-facing systems for vulnerabilities has elicited many responses online.

Contrary to comments circulating on social media, Mindef’s Bug Bounty Programme is neither a crazy risk nor a cunning ploy to trap hackers.

In fact, such an initiative can be useful for other organisations – if executed correctly. A bug bounty programme takes advantage of crowdsourcing to tap on a wide range of researchers with different tools and techniques, who can find security flaws that a single organisation cannot find on its own.

…Benjamin Ang is Senior Fellow and Head of the Cyber and Homeland Defence Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies’ Centre of Excellence for National Security.