How to succeed in bug bounty as a non-talented bug hunter

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When I started bug bounty hunting about 4 years ago. I looked up information about top bug bounty hunter and wondered how are they hunting bugs and grow their H1 reputation so fast. 1 year later, when I found my 1st, 10th, 20th bugs. I still had this question. Because although I had found some bugs, it took me a few days to find one.

Recently, as I get more mature in bug bounty. I start to develop a deep understanding for a program. I see many attack surfaces that other people don't realize. When this program releases a new feature, I check if this feature can be abused to attack the attack surfaces A, B, C or D. Oftentimes, at least 1+ bugs are found.

When I keep hunting on this program and discover a new attack surface, I check if any existing features can be abused to attack this attack surface. Oftentimes, at least 1+ bugs are found.

When there is no new released feature and attack surfaces. I sometimes  wander the program, looking at already tested features and to my surprise. There is a function that I have not tested yet. When I try to abuse this function to attack my known attack surfaces, the chance to find bug is high.

My point is, when we invest enough time and attention in a program. We understand it deeply and know many attack surfaces that other don't. Then we can find many bugs and they usually take much less effort than other shallow-programs.


Currently, I have one program like this


Back to the question of how top hunters hunt so fast. It is possible if they have not one, but multiple programs that they understand deeply.

This is a relief, because at the beginning, I thought top hackers have crazy technical skills, 10 times better than me. It seems overwhelm and I felt like it is impossible reach their level, when looking at how much bugs they have found. I feel some imposter syndrome too.

Nevertheless, top hackers are still very impressive. They have great technical skills, still better than me. But they seem to have a good work ethic. It is very time consuming to convert a new program into a deeply-understood programs. And not any program can be converted to a deeply-understood programs (small scope, unreliable program team, etc). So it takes effort, time and patience to find one such program.

You may say it takes luck too. But to me, luck is just a side-effect of working consistently.

Anyway, that's one way for a non-talented bug hunter can become a top bug hunter.

Comments

  1. Jean BolívarMarch 7, 2024 at 8:24 AM

    I had forgotten to check your blog for a while. Thanks you for this post, insightful as always.

    ReplyDelete
  2. EApril 21, 2024 at 5:35 PM

    Thanks for the post, but I think technical skill is a huge gap between the newbie and the top.
    Technical skill requires a lot of time and effort to practice and accumulate experience which beginners lack and need to work hard on.
    Usually, it's precisely due to differences in technological understanding that vulnerabilities arise, whether the differences of developer and the bug hunter or the newbie and the top.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. trieulieuf9August 30, 2024 at 11:12 PM

      Technical skill is always good to have. But there are many factors that help in how much success a bug hunter have. A bug hunter who earns $1,000,000 in bounty surely doesn't have 10x technical skill more than a bug hunter who earns $100,000, he may choose better programs, aims for specific bug types, socialize and collab more, automate his work, work more hours, etc.

      Delete

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