Ethical hackers are getting the chance to see if they can crack the security on an orbiting US Defense Department satellite, reports Wired.
Vetted experts will tackle the satellite and its control systems at the 2020 Def Con hacker conference.
The demonstration follows a session at Def Con 2019 that let researchers tackle an F-15 fighter jet computer.
The Air Force said Def Con demos were part of efforts to expose military systems to better security checks.
“We have to get over our fear of embracing external experts to help us be secure,” Will Roper, assistant secretary of the US Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, told the tech news magazine.
He said that before now, the US military had kept its technology to itself and assumed that this meant it was secure.
In a separate interview, Mr Roper told military news site C4ISR that a closed attitude “made sense” during the Cold War but was now outdated.
“Now technology changes so rapidly and most of it is driven by software,” he said. “The idea that closed can make you more secure is a hypothesis we need to question.”