Pentagon paying more to be hacked.

The Defense Department will spend more money to encourage non-malicious hackers to probe its IT systems, as part of a larger effort to boost cybersecurity.

The Pentagon requested $6.7 billion for cyber capabilities and operations for fiscal year 2017. Analysts expect such spending to continue rising in the coming years.

The Defense Department recently awarded contracts with a total value of $7 million to two crowd-sourcing firms--HackerOne and Synack Inc.--to expand a "bug bounty" pilot program known as "Hack the Pentagon," which was launched in April and ended in May.

Bug bounty initiatives provide monetary prizes to vetted friendly hackers who find cyber vulnerabilities that can then be remedied before hostile actors can exploit them.

Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter wants the services and other defense agencies to adopt this approach and pay outsiders to probe their systems. These latest contracts are expected to help fund at least 14 different hacking competitions known as "challenges."

The ultimate objective is to "normalize the crowd-sourced approach to digital defenses," the Pentagon said in a recent press release.

The expansion of the bug bounty program is "fantastic news for eligible hackers who will have an opportunity to hunt bugs and earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in bounties," HackerOne CEO Marten Mickos said in a company press release.

"HackerOne is by far the largest bounty-driven marketplace for white-hat hackers, and Synack has developed a powerful proprietary model...