What is Bug Bounty? How do you start learning the field?

 

The field of bug hunting is one of the most popular fields in the past years; Especially with the increase in the number of security problems in electronic systems and devices, and also that this field can be excelled in without a specialized university study in the field of computer science or the like. As we have provided previous learning paths such as the Web Development Learning Path, as well as the Game Programming Learning Path and other paths, we will learn, God willing, in this article the field of Bug Bounty Hunting rewards and how to become a bounty hunter? We will also talk about the most popular platforms in the field such as HackerOne and BugCrowd.

What is the loophole?

- Before we talk about the bounty hunting field, let us first know what is the loophole? A vulnerability, in short, is a defect or bug in a system or product that allows a vulnerability finder to gain unauthorized access to, modify, or destroy information within the system. Often these defects lead to problems with the system or product that can result in its complete destruction as happens in ransomware attacks.

The types of gaps vary according to the field of specialization. There are vulnerabilities at the software level, and often these are software errors. There are network-level errors, operating system-level errors, and web application-level errors; The latter is one of the most common vulnerabilities, and the field of web vulnerability discovery is the field most suitable for beginners in the field of vulnerability hunting.

What is hole hunting?

The field of bug hunting in a nutshell is doing an analysis of a particular system, program, or web application and trying to find any vulnerabilities that exist. During the analysis process, the researcher tries to find a loophole within the scope of the research allowed by the program. Each reward program has a scope that includes the gaps that the program accepts, and the things that the researcher is allowed to do.

- If a vulnerability is discovered within the scope of the program, the researcher prepares a report on the vulnerability or group of vulnerabilities it has discovered and includes a PoC or proof of work of the vulnerability, and the report can contain suggestions for fixing this vulnerability. Once the program team reviews and confirms the report, you will be awarded a reward for the work you have done.

Searching for vulnerabilities on a site or service that does not provide vulnerability software and you did not obtain permission from it could expose you to legal liability.

Why are loophole bounty programs important?

Security vulnerabilities may cost companies huge financial losses; Especially the loopholes that lead to the leakage of sensitive data such as personal data, bank card data, etc. for example; In 2021, a hacker group was able to exploit loopholes in the system of an American company JBS Foods to launch a ransom attack on the company and encrypt its entire systems, and indeed the attack succeeded and the company had to pay a ransom of $ 11 million using Bitcoin Zero-Dayto regain access to its systems again.

- Because of the seriousness of the loopholes and the possibility of their exploitation affecting the business and stopping them completely, or causing huge losses, as we have seen; Companies adopt what is known as vulnerability reward programs, where security researchers and ethical hackers examine systems, programs, and applications to find loopholes or errors that can be exploited for system penetration, unauthorized access to the internal network, or otherwise. to fix it.

In return, the vulnerability finder receives a reward that varies according to its severity, the product in which the vulnerability is discovered, and other factors, but it can be said that the rewards for reporting vulnerabilities may range from hundreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars; Same as in Zero-Day vulnerabilities. There are also rewards exceeding one million dollars in the event of successful penetration of some systems such as Android and iOS.

How to become a hole hunter?

- as we mentioned before; There are various sections in this field that vary depending on the system, platform, etc. If you do not have any experience in the field of software and computer engineering at all, you should start specializing in only one field of this field, and after gaining good experience in it, you can expand and enter other areas, but the specialization first will be very important, and this field is intertwined and interconnected. . Anything you learn in one section will benefit you in the other sections.

Web Application Penetration Test

- for specialization; If you want a nomination for a section suitable for beginners in the field of vulnerability hunting, the best choice for you would be the Web Application Penetration Testing section for several reasons:

1. One of the suitable fields to start without experience in the field
2. Plenty of bounty hunting bounty programs for web applications
3. Easy to learn for those with web development experience
4. Detecting vulnerabilities in web applications is sometimes less difficult than in other areas

Learn the field of web application penetration testing

- To start in the field of penetration testing without having prior experience, you must study some curricula independently online for free. These courses will prepare you to understand how web applications work and the mechanism by which these applications communicate with users. Thus, when you start studying specialized penetration courses in the field of web applications, you will be aware of everything that is explained within the course without the need for clarification from the course presenter.

- We had provided a detailed itinerary on our website for how to start in this field from scratch, and what technology you need to study in detail. This track is not available anywhere but on our website. You can review the following link to learn how to learn ethical hacking from scratch without any prior experience and completely free. Once you have completed the first 6 stages of the path, you will be able to start penetration testing and participate in vulnerability hunting programs.

Learn the field of web application penetration testing without prior study

- If you want to start directly practicing penetration testing; several courses start directly with you by teaching hacking without the need for prior study, but it should be noted that you will not be as knowledgeable and able as you will get by following the aforementioned path. I have provided the longest and best path, the shortest path, and you must choose.

Web Application Penetration Testing Courses

- I will now provide a collection of the best free courses to study for anyone who wants to start catching Bug Bounty via web application penetration testing.

• PentesterAcademy
• SEC542
• isc2

The best borehole hunting sites

- After we talked about what are the vulnerabilities and what is the field of Bug Bounty, several courses startandstarted we learned about the importance of this field and its sections and how you can start penetration testing and search for gaps for a fee; Now we are going to learn about the best vulnerabilities bounty platforms that you can sign up for and look for vulnerabilities in the apps available within each program.

1- HackerOne website

HackerOne is the most famous site in this field, providing hundreds of sites and services that give subscribers the ability to search for loopholes in their products, and the payments of this site to hackers until the year 2020 AD exceeded $100 million. The site is characterized by the abundance of a variety of programs that differ in the scope of their search, and it has a distinctive design based on reputation and ranking in terms of the number of discovered vulnerabilities.

Not all of the programs available on the site are available to all hackers. There are special programs if you have a distinguished reputation. You will be contacted and invited to participate in the program. When you discover a loophole and you get profits, your balance can be withdrawn from the site on the PayPal account easily.

To access the website link, click here

2- Bugcrowd site

The second site is Bugcrowd, which is very similar to HackerOne and works with a similar mechanism. The site provides a set of programs that researchers can try to hack and find any holes in it. What is unique about this site is that you can browse the programs that you can try to hack without the need to register and create an account on the site, and you can do so only if a vulnerability is discovered.

To access the website link, click here

3- Synack website

- This platform is for professionals, and unlike the previous two platforms, you can not only create an account and start browsing and penetration testing on the programs available on it, but you must undergo some tests from the site to prove your competence and eligibility to join the hacker team on the site.

To access the website link, click here

4- Special Programs

- There are some companies and sites - especially the major ones - that provide their own Bug Bounty program that can be found on their official website, as is the case in Facebook, Google, Apple, and other companies.

- If you find a loophole in one of these sites, you can go directly to the company's official rewards program and submit your report on the vulnerability, and in case of acceptance, the protection team within the company will contact you to send the reward.