Presentation Material
Abstract
The Best way to improve the security of your systems is to hire hackers. Unfortunately, companies can’t hire all best hackers, so the companies has chosen another best way to improve their system security, “Bug Bounty Program”
Google, Facebook, Mozilla, PayPal, Etsy and many other companies pay a good amount to hackers for responsible disclosure and recently it is being started as a service in the form of “bugcrowd” Security Researchers have submitted bugs ranging from configuration issues to SQL injections.
This topic is not about what is a “Bug Bounty” program, who all is paying what amount and the scope of testing. This paper is basically focused on the approach to finding simple and yet devastating vulnerabilities, earn hefty amounts and share space with the top researchers from around the globe.
This paper depicts easy but unique methods to look for bugs online.
I started on this journey roughly five months back and kind of formulated a procedure to attack the strongest of applications in a short span of time.
AI Generated Summary
This presentation discusses the methodology and practical execution of crowdsourced application security research, specifically within the context of bug bounty programs and responsible disclosure. The core argument is that effective security testing requires a structured approach to target selection and scoping, moving beyond generic testing to focus on an organization’s specific digital assets.
Key findings and techniques presented include the use of “Google dorks” and specialized search queries to identify an organization’s entire digital footprint, including subdomains, historical data, and exposed files (PDFs, documents). The speaker emphasizes the importance of targeting the “recent edition” of a company’s online presence—its current products, services, and acquisitions—to avoid wasted effort on outdated or irrelevant assets. A significant portion details a case study involving the compromise of a high-profile individual’s accounts (Twitter, Amazon) through social engineering and the exploitation of billing address and credit card information, demonstrating the chain of vulnerabilities from data leakage to account takeover.
Practical implications stress the necessity for researchers to understand the legal and business context of their targets. This includes recognizing cross-border data protection laws (like GDPR) and distinguishing between public and critically sensitive personal data (e.g., medical records). The talk advocates for meticulous scoping to ensure testing is authorized and relevant, and it highlights the operational model of platforms that facilitate coordinated vulnerability disclosure between researchers and companies. The ultimate takeaway is that successful, ethical security research is a disciplined practice combining technical reconnaissance with an understanding of corporate structure and legal boundaries, rather than indiscriminate scanning.