Ridiculously Wrong Time to Get Into Bug Bounty

Does it ever feel like you’re missing out when you see people on Twitter casually dropping four-figure bounties — and sometimes even five? It did for me. Watching 15-year-olds make better progress than me was straight-up disheartening. It made me question everything — my decisions, my skills, and whether I was wasting my time in this field.

This isn’t 2018 or 2019 when a handful of hackers dominated HackerOne, raking in bounties while the rest watched in awe. Back then, recon tools weren’t as mainstream, automation wasn’t a necessity, and the competition wasn’t cutthroat. Today? The game has changed. The wealth is spread across a much larger pool. The elite hunters have built custom automation stacks, scalping every low-hanging bug before most even start scanning. And the new ones? They’re grinding, chasing scraps, working harder than ever just to land a valid report.

It’s a brutal reality — bug bounty isn’t the easy money it once was. It’s no longer about just finding bugs; it’s about outpacing a horde of skilled hunters with better tools, better methodologies, and a head start. But does that mean it’s hopeless? Maybe. Maybe not.

Hunting for a few hours a week won’t cut it anymore. This isn’t the old days when you could just fire up Burp Suite, run some scans, and land easy payouts. Now, companies have hardened their security, bug bounty platforms are flooded with reports, and automation eats up everything that isn’t deeply buried. The only thing that can set you apart is time — brute-force dedication.

That means:

Spending days just understanding how a target works before even looking for bugs.Developing a methodology that isn’t just “run some tools and hope for the best.”Reading security papers, CVEs, and obscure documentation to find angles others haven’t.Being so deep into a target that when a new feature drops, you already know where the bugs might be.

Bug bounty isn’t dead, but it’s damn near impossible for those who aren’t obsessed. The ones still making money? They’re hunting 10+ hours a day, treating this like a full-time job, sacrificing sleep, and constantly evolving. And even then, it’s a gamble.

So if you’re here just because you saw someone flex a $10,000 bounty on Twitter, ask yourself — are you willing to put in the kind of effort they did? Because in 2025, that’s the only thing that separates the ones who make it from the ones who quit.

I have that will and I jumped into this pool. Will you?

Let me know in the comments.