Washington: United Airlines wants you to access the company's deepest, darkest secrets as the company has asked customers to hack into their systems to help expose privacy weaknesses and sniff out problem areas in their apps and what do you get in return? Free flights!

The reports on the own website show that the new "hacker" program is legitimate thing. Titled "Bug Bounty", the challenge allows independent "researchers" (or evil computer geniuses) to dig up security risks "that affect the confidentiality, integrity and/or availability of customer or company information", wrote the company this week. The company says that those who will successfully uncover flaws in the system will be rewarded with 1 million frequent flyer miles.

"At United, we take your safety, security and privacy seriously," wrote the company on its official "Bug Bounty" program page. "We believe that this program will further bolster our security and allow us to continue to provide excellent service."

But here is a catch: you have to be one of the airline's MileagePlus members in order to qualify for the challenge - or you need to be a good hacker so that you can hack into MileagePlus websites to make it look like you're a member. Current United and partner program employees are exempt.

Wired Magazine reported that Bug Bounty's payout of frequent flyer miles is relatively uninspiring compared to programs like it. "For comparison, most bug bounty programs offered by companies like Google, Microsoft and Facebook pay researchers cash ranging from $1,500 to more than $200,000, depending on the type and severity of the vulnerability," reported the publication.

The move was aimed at acting as a deterrent against major data breaches like the ones that hit Target and Sony last year.

There are some pretty standard restrictions: United listed a number of automatic program disqualifications on their website, including "Brute-force attacks", "Code injection on live systems", "Testing on aircraft or aircraft systems such as inflight entertainment or inflight Wi-Fi", and "Physical attacks against United employees [or passengers]." You know, the usual.