How to start bug bounty hunting with no experience

Bug bounty hunting rewards people who find real security flaws in authorised programs. You do not need a degree, but you do need fundamentals, practice and patience. Here is a path that works.

1. Learn how the web works

Understand HTTP requests and responses, cookies and sessions, HTML and JavaScript basics, and how APIs pass data. Most vulnerabilities are a misunderstanding of one of these.

2. Learn the vulnerability classes programs pay for

Start with the OWASP Top 10: broken access control (including IDOR), injection, cross-site scripting, authentication failures and server-side request forgery. Learn one class deeply before moving on.

3. Practise legally

Use deliberately vulnerable labs and capture-the-flag challenges. Never test a live system that has not authorised you. Learn a proxy tool such as Burp Suite or Caido so you can see and modify traffic.

4. Read real reports

Public disclosed reports show how experienced researchers think: what they noticed, how they proved impact and how they wrote it up. Read many before writing your first.

5. Pick one target and stay with it

Choose a program with a wide scope and stay on it for weeks. Learn its features like a power user. Depth beats hopping between programs.

6. Write reports triagers love

Give a clear title, exact steps to reproduce, the impact in business terms and a suggested fix. A clear report is validated faster and rewarded more reliably.

Registration on BugsBounty.com is by prior approval. When you are ready, apply to join; you may be asked to complete a CTF.