Bug bounty hunting is one of the few fields where age is genuinely irrelevant. What matters is methodology, persistence, and a deep understanding of how web systems fail. This is my exact recon workflow — refined through dozens of programs.

Phase 0: Scope Analysis

Before touching a single tool, I spend 20-30 minutes reading the program scope document carefully:

  • What domains are in scope? Are wildcards included (*.target.com)?
  • What vulnerability classes are excluded (usually DoS, social engineering)?
  • What is the minimum severity for payout?
  • Are acquisitions and third-party assets in scope?

Phase 1: Passive Recon

# Subdomain sources — passive only
subfinder -d target.com -all -silent > passive_subs.txt
amass enum -passive -d target.com >> passive_subs.txt
curl "https://crt.sh/?q=%.target.com&output=json" | jq -r '.[].name_value' | sort -u >> passive_subs.txt
sort -u passive_subs.txt -o passive_subs.txtbash

Phase 2: Active Discovery

# Resolve live subdomains
cat passive_subs.txt | dnsx -silent -a -resp > live_dns.txt
# Find web services
cat live_dns.txt | awk '{print $1}' | httpx -silent -title -status-code -tech-detect > web_services.txt
# Hunt for interesting targets
grep -E "(admin|api|dev|staging|internal|test)" web_services.txtbash

Phase 3: Automated Scanning

# Nuclei template-based scanning
nuclei -l web_services.txt -t ~/nuclei-templates/ -severity medium,high,critical -o nuclei_results.txt -silentbash

Phase 4: Manual Testing Checklist

  • Parameter tampering on all forms (price manipulation, IDOR in numeric IDs)
  • JWT token inspection and algorithm confusion attacks
  • Rate limiting on authentication endpoints
  • Mass assignment on API registration and update flows
  • GraphQL introspection enabled on production endpoints
  • Host header injection in password reset flows
  • Open redirect chaining for account takeover

"Automation finds the easy stuff. High-severity, unique findings come from manual testing — from thinking like the developer who made the mistake."

Writing a Good Report

A well-written report doubles your chance of maximum payout. My template: clear title with severity, one-line summary, step-by-step reproduction steps, proof-of-concept (screenshots or video), impact statement, suggested remediation. Keep it technical but readable. Assume the reader is a developer, not a security expert.