Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate announced Thursday that his office is launching a new program allowing outside security experts to find and patch weaknesses in its websites, including those related to elections.
With the new vulnerability disclosure program, Iowa becomes the second state, following Ohio, to give legal liability protections to researchers hunting for bugs that could leave its networks susceptible to attacks if left unaddressed. Pate’s office is working with Bugcrowd, an ethical-hacking firm that crowdsources cybersecurity professionals to look for flaws in its clients’ systems.
