The average person hears the word “hacking” and sees a threat rather than a force for good. But the reality of the cybersecurity landscape today is that hacking is also used by the “good guys” for defensive purposes.
Sometimes known as white-hat hackers or ethical hackers, defensive hackers play a crucial role in keeping the rest of us safe online and protecting valuable financial and trade secret information. They also help solve real national security issues.
Some of the most innovative white-hat hackers aren’t who you’d expect. There are seasoned cybersecurity professionals in this space, sure, but also college students just embarking on careers in digital security. Here’s a look at what they’re up to and how they’re looking after America’s national security interests.
Two Meanings Of “Hacking For Defense”
“Hacking for Defense” is a type of white-hat hacking that’s done for the greater good. Its primary objective is to identify vulnerabilities in digital systems and provide recommendations for fixing them before the bad guys can act.
Defensive hackers thwart would-be attackers many times every single day. Unfortunately, their victories are often overshadowed by major data breaches, which are rarer overall but which make far more compelling news stories.
Hacking for Defense is also a proper name — specifically, of a national security collaboration between the U.S. Department of Defense, multiple civilian and military intelligence agencies, and some 60 major research universities. More than 3,000 students — some of the best and brightest of the next generation of digital defenders — participate in Hacking for Defense.
Hacking for Defense is a novel approach to national security. It aims to equip students with the necessary skills to solve complex security problems. It’s not just about breaking things; it’s about building stronger systems too.
A Brief History Of (Ethical) Student Hacking
College students have been in the defensive hacking business for as long as the internet has been a thing.
Longer, in fact; the first hackers operated on local networks rather than the public Web. Some of the toughest digital security challenges of the early internet met their matches at student-led “hackathons,” where hundreds or thousands of white-hat hackers would get together to find and fix vulnerabilities.
Student participation in white-hat hacking efforts is more than just an extracurricular activity. It helps build the next generations of cyber-defenders — professionals likely to have an outsize impact on the digital landscape for years to come.
Hacking For Defense: Solving Real National Security Issues Right Now
Like many aspects of digital life, ethical hacking has become more professionalized and more effective over time.
The Hacking for Defense collaboration is arguably the most ambitious student-driven ethical hacking effort to date, and its real-world impact reflects that. It has already produced a number of notable innovations that significantly enhance digital security for specific systems and applications or empower those in the cyber-defense business to work more effectively.
Let’s take a look at a few recent Hacking for Defense wins.
Project Agrippa
Tasked by the U.S. Navy with developing “new operational concepts to incorporate emerging technologies in order to successfully compete and deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific,” the Project Agrippa team conducted nearly 250 field interviews to find out just what the Navy needed. The outcome was blindingly simple yet extremely ambitious: an unmanned logistics vessel designed to decentralize communications and transport in the region.
ChatAWG
Developed by Asymmetric Warfare Group team member and recent Stanford alum Finn Dayton, ChatAWG was a novel webapp that leveraged a bespoke large language model to improve large technical PDFs’ searchability and relevance for database users. The app improves study speed and efficiency for military officer cadets and other national security personnel who need to refer to dense reference material.
Splint-X
Sometimes, ethical hackers develop real-world solutions to age-old problems. That was the outcome for Splint-X, a Texas A&M University team that developed a field-dressing solution for ejected pilots and aircrew, who frequently break limbs during the ejection process and may land miles from the nearest safe medical facility.
Post-Quantum Cryptography
Quantum computing isn’t quite ready for prime time, but it’s coming. And whoever achieves effective, reliable quantum computing capacity at scale will be in a position to break any conventional encryption protocol in short order.
The Post-Quantum Cryptography team at the University of Alabama-Huntsville hasn’t (yet) invented a quantum-ready encryption protocol, but its solution does create a framework for military and IC software engineers to stay one step ahead of the bad guys when the quantum revolution arrives.
Challenges And Ethical Concerns Of White-Hat Hacking
White-hat hacking in general and Hacking for Defense in particular aren’t totally free of ethical concerns. Nor are they entirely immune to the sorts of collateral damage that more sinister hackers routinely produce. These are three of the community’s most significant concerns.
- Privacy and data security concerns. Ironically, ethical hacking can raise significant ethical implications. Digital privacy and data security are tops among these, as even well-intentioned hacks can cause data loss and/or cause embarrassment for those affected.
- Legal issues. There’s no “get out of jail free” card for ethical hackers. The law is still the law, and overzealous white hats need to be careful not to cross the line.
- Future-proofing. It’s not just quantum computing. Ongoing (and rapid) advances in AI and machine learning could render white-hat hackers’ work obsolete, or at least make it more challenging to keep up with the state of the art.
Hacking for Defense — both in the general “ethical hacking” sense and with regards to the specific civilian-military collaboration discussed above — is critical to our national security arsenal.
That’s why it’s so encouraging to see programs like Hacking for Defense producing real-world results for good. With students increasingly stepping into the role of cybersecurity defenders, we can look forward to a safer digital future. It’s not just about creating hackers; it’s about training up the next generation of digital guardians and making the digital landscape safer for everyone.
