Hello Everyone, I am Rutik
In this article you will learn all the information that helps you to start as BugBounty Hunter, what are the necessary tools that you need to learn. Also, we will discuss some of the prerequisites skills, training, and certification in the correct order and how things work in the real world.
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What Is a Bug Bounty?
A bug bounty program allows hackers to receive compensation for reporting bugs, also known as vulnerabilities and possible exploits, in organizations’ hardware, firmware, and software. Most commonly, though, they allow organizations to use external resources to find and disclose vulnerabilities that exist within their sensitive applications.
The goal of this initiative is to prevent black-hat or grey-hat hackers from exploiting an organization for bugs found in applications that contain confidential information to the company or its customers. Over the years, bug bounty programs have grown exponentially to include large companies and government organizations.
For example, Google’s bug bounty program will pay you up to $31,337 if you report a critical security vulnerability in a Google service.
The first bug bounty program was released in 1983 for developers to hack Hunter & Ready’s Versatile Real-Time Executive Operating System. If a developer reported a bug, they would receive a Volkswagen Beetle (aka a VW “bug”) as a reward.
Most modern bug bounty programs pay cash rewards you can receive rewards ranging from hundreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars per disclosure. Although the industry is very competitive, there are even hackers who do this full-time.
Who are the Bug Bounty Hunters?
Bug bounty hunters are individuals who know the nuts and bolts of cybersecurity and are well versed in finding flaws and vulnerabilities. There are various bug bounty platforms that allow them to be paid to find vulnerabilities in applications and software. Bug bounty programs allow hackers to detect and fix bugs before the public hears about them, in order to prevent incidents of widespread abuse.
How to become a Bug Bounty Hunter?
Definitely, before finding bugs in any platforms you need to understand how web applications work and understanding the architecture of these apps. A solid understanding of some network fundamentals, SQL database, web components like HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript will increase the opportunity of analyzing some vulnerabilities but you shouldn't be an expert for all of them.
Also if you have some knowledge in python, it will be an added value to create your own tools that will help you to achieve a specific goal that other tools won’t do for you.
Skills required to be a bug bounty hunter
Some of the key areas to focus on that is part of OWASP Top which are:
- Information gathering
- SQL Injection
- Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
- Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF)
- Local & Remote file inclusion
- Information Disclosure
- Remote Code Execution (RCE)
After understanding these vulnerabilities you can begin reading other reports, POCs on the bug bounty platforms to figure out the common testing techniques
Bug Bounty Tools for Beginners
Ready to try your hand at bug bounty hunting? Let’s get started with our list of bug bounty tools to transform you from a beginner to a hunter in a bug bounty program. This list of bug bounty training resources includes tools for those who prefer to read, watch videos, take a course, practice hacking a website, and jump right into a bug bounty program.
Bug Hunter Toolkit
There are no standard tools for the security researcher or the bug hunter. However, you need to be familiar with some common components like:
- Web browser
You can use your preferred version of a web browser “Google Chrome / Firefox” and you can weaponize it with some addons as well to make your testing journey easier.
- Proxy
Using an interception proxy is required in order to trap all the traffic between your browser and the target website. Also, you can automate some attacks or use some features like encoding/decoding on the fly.
- Virtual machine
Using Virtual machines is helpful for two reasons. First, it allows you to isolate your testing tools from your original operating system, Second, in order to practice on some vulnerable applications that have already been published online like VulnHub you will need to download an ISO file and ready for virtualization
Bug Bounty Training Books
Looking for a few books for bug bounty training? Here’s a couple of the best bug bounty books for you to start learning how to hack:
- Ghost In The Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker
This book is the most popular among bug bounty hunters and cybersecurity professionals for insight into the mind of a black-hat hacker. It is also a great starting point you can learn how to think like a hacker by reading an interesting story rather than instructional material.
“Ghost In The Wires” is the story of Kevin Mitnick, one of the best computer break-in artists ever, who went on the run for hacking into the world’s biggest companies. His series of escapes led authorities and companies to reevaluate their current level of security. He’s now an ethical hacker who teaches companies how to secure their systems against unscrupulous hackers.
- The Web Application Hacker’s Handbook: Finding and Exploiting Security Flaws, 2nd Edition
Some people refer to this as the bible of web application hacking because it provides step-by-step strategies to attack (red team) and defend (blue team) web platforms. In “The Web Application Hacker’s Handbook: Finding and Exploiting Security Flaws, 2nd Edition,” you’ll learn about hacking certain types of technology and remoting frameworks.
As a bonus, there’s also a bug bounty website paired with the book’s content. This gives you an opportunity to apply everything you learn. As such, this book is valuable.
- Web Hacking 101: How to Make Money Hacking Ethically
Web Hacking 101 is an eBook that was developed by software security expert Peter Yaworski. His goal was to help the HackerOne community profit from their bug bounty hunting skills within a bug bounty program. Basically, this bug bounty tool will help you learn how to monetize your cybersecurity knowledge.
If you want to learn how to hack as a beginner for free, HackerOne makes this eBook available for free. Once you sign up or log into your free HackerOne account, you’ll receive the publication via email.
Bug Bounty Training Courses
1. Hacker101
In addition to the Web Hacking 101 eBook, HackerOne also offers a Hacker101 course for people who are interested in learning how to hack for free. This bug bounty course provides a lot of video lessons and captures the flag challenges on the topic of web security.
2. Web Security Academy
Another highly-regarded bug bounty course in the industry for learning how to hack as a beginner is PortSwigger’s Web Security Academy. This free training is provided by the creators of Burp Suite to help boost your career with interactive labs and the chance to learn from experts.
The team of bug bounty experts is led by the author of The Web Application Hacker’s Handbook. Just a few of the topics covered in this training include:
- HTTP host header attacks,
- Web cache poisoning,
- SQL injection
- XXE injection (aka external entity injection).
To learn more about this course, check out the Portswigger Web Security Academy website.