40 Tips and Tricks to Improve your Bug Bounties as a beginner

TL;DR — Some great bug hunting tips I’ve accumulated from various sources for beginners looking to gain an edge as soon as possible.

Introduction

Bug hunting is hard work, but with persistence and determination obtaining bug bounties can become increasingly frequent. I wanted to showcase the best tips that I’ve found for beginners, that would help less experienced bug hunters to progress quickly. These are 40 of the most crucial ones that I’ve found, mainly collected from articles listed here:

The Tips →

Understand the scope of the program and the types of vulnerabilities that are eligible for rewards.Keep up to date with the latest tools and techniques in the field.Use multiple tools and approaches to find vulnerabilities (this should take hours, if not days)Focus on finding high-impact vulnerabilities.Test for all common vulnerabilities, including SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and insecure authentication.Test for a few less common vulnerabilities (only when permitted by scope), such as business logic flaws and denial of service attacks.Take the time to thoroughly test the target, including all subdomains and external services.Test for vulnerabilities in the target’s mobile applications and APIs.Keep detailed notes of your testing, including the steps you took and the results you obtained.Be persistent, and don’t give up easily.Be ethical and follow the program’s rules and guidelines.Communicate clearly and professionally when reporting vulnerabilities.Provide detailed instructions for reproducing the vulnerability.Include a helpful proof-of-concept to demonstrate the vulnerability.Follow up on your reports to ensure they are triaged and resolved.Understand how the target’s security systems work, including any defenses they have in place.Use a variety of test accounts and access levels to get a more complete view of the target’s vulnerabilities.Consider the target’s entire infrastructure, including its networks, servers, and data centers.Use automation to help with repetitive tasks and to increase your efficiency.Take advantage of free training and educational resources to improve your skills.Join online communities and forums to learn from other bug bounty hunters and to share your own experiences.Collaborate with other hunters to share information and to work on challenging targets.Attend conferences and meetups to learn from experts and to network with other hunters.Use social engineering to gather information about the target and its employees.Use Google and other search engines to find information about the target and its vulnerabilities.Use the target’s own website and social media accounts to gather information.Use public data breaches to find information that may be useful in your testing.Use vulnerability databases, such as the National Vulnerability Database, to find known vulnerabilities in the target’s software.Use a web proxy to capture and analyze the traffic between your browser and the target’s website.Use a password manager to generate and store strong, unique passwords for each of your test accounts.Use a virtual private network (VPN) to protect your privacy and anonymity while testing.Use a different web browser or operating system to avoid any biases in your testing.Use a secondary device, such as a smartphone or tablet, to test the target’s mobile applications.Use a debugger to reverse engineer the target’s software and to find vulnerabilities.Use a fuzzer to automatically test the target’s inputs for vulnerabilities.Use a network scanner to identify the target’s networks and servers.Use a vulnerability scanner to automatically find known vulnerabilities in the target’s software.Use a password cracking tool to test the strength of the target’s passwords.Use a web application firewall (WAF) to protect your own testing environment from attacks.Use a security-focused Linux distribution, such as Kali Linux, to simplify your testing environment.

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