The Pentagon with the Washington Monument and National Mall in the background. As the Department of Defense works on the contours of a threat hunting program for defense contractors, old debates about the role of government involvement in private sector cybersecurity reemerge. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Senior Airman Perry Aston) Companies that participate in a potential Pentagon program to conduct threat hunting across the defense industrial base should be protected from legal liability and be given additional financial or technical support to ensure small businesses arenât crowded out, an industry group is arguing. The Cyberspace Solarium Commission issued dozens of recommendations to policymakers last year, many of which made it into Congressâ annual defense authorization legislation. One of the provisions that made it into the final law requires the secretary of defense to deliver a report by September, laying out the feasibility of a DoD-led threat hunting program that focuses on identify and rooting out cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the systems and networks of defense contractors. If that report is favorable to the idea, DoD officials plan to have such a program in place by 2022.