How I Hacked My Way Into College (and Became a Life Job Afterward)

It was the night before my college application deadline, and I panicked.

I had applied for a fee waiver weeks ago, but *TARGET*? Radio silence. No email, no update, no way to submit my application without paying a fee I couldn’t afford.

I had two choices:

Option 1? Not happening.

So, with the deadline ticking down, I did what any so-called “ethical” hacker in desperation mode would do — I hacked the system. If the system wasn’t going to help me, I’d help myself.

My first instinct was to examine how “Target” processes waiver codes. I figured there had to be a way to request one manually, maybe by tweaking a few parameters.

After a few searches online about the waivers’ structure, I found it:
📌 A simple 5-character waiver code (e.g., ABC12)
📌 Only uppercase letters and numbers
📌 No more than two numbers
📌 No repeated characters

Okay, so we’re talking about low entropy, meaning predictable codes. This wasn’t some complex cryptographic nightmare — this was a lazy security design waiting to be brute-forced.

But could I actually guess a valid waiver code?

Most systems that validate one-time codes have protections:
✅ Rate limiting (so you can’t try a million codes per second)
✅ CAPTCHAs (to stop bots from automating attacks)
✅ Lockouts (after too many failed attempts)

But the *Target*? None of the above.

NO. RATE. LIMITING. 💀

I could fire as many guesses as I wanted without being blocked. They were practically asking to be brute-forced.

So, I whipped up a quick Python script to generate every possible waiver code and started sending requests.

With my humble laptop, I was able to send 2000 requests per minute.

In just half an hour, I had tested 60,000 waiver codes.

🔥 I found 342 valid waiver codes. 🔥

But… they had already been used. Still, this proved one thing: the attack worked.

I kept going, refining my script, and eventually — boom. A valid, unused waiver code.

I used it to submit my application before the deadline. I had won.

Now that my college application was safely submitted, I had to make a decision.

Since I believe in ethical hacking (most of the time apparently), I chose the second option. I reported the vulnerability to *target*’s bug bounty program on HackerOne.

At first, they downplayed the issue, arguing that brute-force attacks on non-authentication endpoints were out of scope. But when I proved that I had successfully retrieved valid codes, they started taking it seriously.

🚀 Status: Triaged
🚀 Impact: Confirmed
🚀 Bounty? Pending…

Now, I’m just waiting to see if they’ll reward me for securing their system — or if I just saved them millions for free.

For Developers:

🔴 Rate-limit your endpoints. Always.
🔴 Avoid weak, predictable codes.
🔴 Monitor traffic spikes — someone blasting thousands of requests is never a good sign.

For Hackers:

🟢 Brute-force vulnerabilities are still a thing — check for them!
🟢 Just because a bug seems “low impact” doesn’t mean it won’t have huge consequences.
🟢 Always provide solid proof in bug bounty reports — evidence is everything.

Right now, the *target* team is reviewing my report, and they admitted that retrieving valid codes increases the severity.

Whether they reward me with a bounty or just fix it quietly, one thing is clear:
If I hadn’t found this vulnerability, it was only a matter of time before someone else did.

Right now, they’re “reviewing” the report.

But let’s be real — they wouldn’t have noticed this flaw until it was too late if I hadn’t exposed it.

Once they patch it?

I’ll name them so you gotta know that even really big companies miss initial security practices.

And the best part?

They could have avoided all of this… if they had just given me my damn waiver.
And that was the story of my first ever bug bounty

💬 What do you think? Ethical genius or desperate college hacker? Have you ever found a security loophole when you needed it most? Let’s chat in the comments! 👇👇👇

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