Bug Bounty & Web Application Security Research

Problem

Public bug bounty programs have broad scope and heavy noise. The challenge is finding genuinely impactful issues efficiently and reporting them so triage teams can validate and fix them quickly.

Scope

• ›Public programs on HackerOne and Bugcrowd (in-scope assets only)
• ›Web applications and their exposed APIs
• ›Strict adherence to each program policy and safe-harbor terms

Tools

Methodology

1. 1
   Recon

   Enumerate in-scope subdomains, resolve live hosts, and fingerprint technologies. Catalogue the real attack surface before touching a single request.

2. 2
   Mapping

   Crawl and manually walk core user journeys, capture JavaScript endpoints, and discover parameters. Prioritize authentication, authorization, and money/data flows.

3. 3
   Testing

   Systematic OWASP Top 10 review: access control (IDOR), injection, SSRF, business-logic abuse, and authentication weaknesses — mostly manual, tooling only to accelerate.

4. 4
   Validation

   Reproduce each candidate finding from a clean session, remove false positives, and confirm real impact within program rules.

5. 5
   Reporting

   Write a clear report: summary, reproduction steps, impact, CVSS vector, and remediation guidance the team can action immediately.

Result & Impact

• ›A consistent workflow that turns broad scope into a prioritized, high-signal test plan
• ›Reports accepted and triaged thanks to clean reproduction steps and accurate severity
• ›Reduced wasted effort by validating impact before submission

Evidence (sanitized)

• ›Sanitized report template (summary / steps / impact / CVSS / remediation)
• ›Redacted recon notes showing surface-reduction from hundreds of hosts to a focused target set

Lessons Learned

• ›Access-control and business-logic flaws consistently out-value automated scanner output.
• ›A great report is a product: the easier you make triage, the faster the fix.
• ›Staying strictly in scope protects both the researcher and the program.