Bug bounty is the closest thing to legalized hacking you’ll ever find. A system built for outlaws but sanitized for corporations: you break things, they pay you. At its core, it’s chaos refined into a marketplace. Platforms line up companies with attack surfaces, hackers line up payloads with imagination, and somewhere in between, money changes hands.
But here’s the truth: it’s not easy money. It’s not “run a scanner, claim a bounty.” It’s craft, persistence, and a willingness to bleed hours against login forms and misconfigured APIs. Done right, it’s one of the few games where a single individual can still stand toe-to-toe with corporations.
What Bug Bounty Really Is
Bug bounty programs are contracts in disguise. Companies outsource part of their security testing to the masses. They dangle a carrot: “Find flaws in our code, and we’ll pay you instead of prosecuting you.”
For hunters, it’s a lifestyle. No permission slip, no SOC manager peering over your shoulder — just a scope, some subdomains, and your willpower. Every submission is a gamble: duplicate, invalid, or jackpot. It’s the same adrenaline you get in a CTF, except the scoreboard is a bank account.
The Big Three Platforms
HackerOne
The juggernaut. Slick dashboards, polished reports, a conveyor belt of companies. HackerOne popularized the model and brought legitimacy. Most of the biggest names — PayPal, Shopify, Uber — run through it.Pros: Broad program variety, private invites once you prove yourself, fast payouts.
Cons: High competition, lots of duplicates, reports sometimes vanish into the void.
Bugcrowd
The steady middle. Older than most people realize, Bugcrowd keeps a mix of private and public programs with a reputation for triage quality. They also pioneered VDPs (Vulnerability Disclosure Programs), so even if you don’t get paid, you can flex by disclosing responsibly.Pros: Cleaner triage, decent reputation, variety of targets.
Cons: Smaller payouts on average, slower pace than HackerOne.
Intigriti
The European edge. Newer, faster, with a strong EU footprint. They court both startups and established giants. Their vibe is more direct: programs respond quickly, payouts are consistent, and the platform feels less bloated.Pros: Higher response rates, emerging EU market, fresh scopes.
Cons: Smaller pool than HackerOne, still scaling.
Between these three, you can build an entire career. Some hunters stick to one platform, others shotgun across all three. The veterans know: the platform is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is your ability to find unique bugs.
How to Get Started Without Burning Out
This is the graveyard where most beginners fall. They create an account, pick a random program, and immediately drown in subdomains and rate limits. Don’t start there. Start structured.
Pick a Platform
Don’t try to be everywhere. Choose one, even if it’s just for the first 3 months. HackerOne has the most volume, Intigriti has the best newcomer vibe.Start with a Low-Scope Program
Everyone wants to hack Shopify or Coinbase. But you’re not going to outgun veterans on those scopes. Pick a smaller SaaS company with a clean, narrow surface. Less competition, more room to breathe.Master Recon Before Payloads
The rookie mistake is jumping straight to XSS payloads. Don’t. Bug bounty is 80% recon. Subdomain discovery, parameter hunting, JavaScript analysis, cloud asset misconfigs — that’s where wins start.
subfinder -d target.com -all -o subs.txt
httpx -l subs.txt -status-code -title -tech-detect -o hosts.txt
waybackurls target.com | anew urls.txt
cat urls.txt | gf xss | kxss | tee xss_candidates.txt
These tools won’t win you bounties alone, but they filter signal from noise.
Learn to Read the App Like a User
Open the site in a browser. Create an account. Buy a fake product. Change your email. Use Burp like a microscope. Every button is a potential injection point. Every workflow is a chance to break logic.Expect Failure
Nine out of ten reports will die as duplicates or N/A. That’s normal. If you can’t handle rejection, bug bounty will chew you alive. Treat every fail as reconnaissance for the next strike.
What to Hunt For
Not all vulnerabilities are equal. On bug bounty platforms, the following are your bread and butter:
Broken Access Control / IDORs: Swap IDs in API requests and watch the data spill.
Authentication Flaws: Weak resets, token reuse, session mis-scoping.
File Upload Issues: Image uploaders that trust too much.
SSRF: Classic, especially in PDF generators, image fetchers, webhook handlers.
Business Logic: Anything scanners won’t find. Skipping checkout steps, bypassing rate limits, downgrading subscriptions.
Forget about trying to pop shells on production servers. Companies don’t want shells. They want you to find flaws that directly affect users.
The Mindset Shift
The difference between a CTF player and a bug bounty hunter is intent.
CTF: “How do I break this contrived challenge?”
Bug bounty: “How does this broken feature affect real users and the business?”
Every report must answer:
Who can exploit this?
What do they gain?
Why should the company care?
If you can’t explain the business impact, you won’t get paid.
The Economics of Hunting
Bug bounty payouts range from $50 for a minor info leak to $50,000+ for a critical RCE. But the averages tell a harder truth: many hunters grind for months before their first $500 hit.
Platforms thrive on volume. Thousands of hackers chasing the same crumbs. That’s the reality. But there’s a flip side: the outliers who treat this like war. They automate recon, study obscure vuln classes, live inside Burp until their eyes burn. Those hunters pull in six figures. Some have walked away millionaires.
Bug bounty is the closest thing to the old days of hacking: outlaw spirit, underground grit, but with invoices and tax forms.
The Path Forward
Bug bounty isn’t a shortcut. It’s not passive income. It’s a craft. If you want to step into it:
Start small.
Document everything.
Don’t copy payloads blindly — understand the why.
Build your recon stack until it’s second nature.
And most importantly: hunt with intent. Companies aren’t paying you to be clever. They’re paying you to be dangerous. To think like the adversary they don’t want to meet.
Final Thoughts
Bug bounty is both art and grind. Platforms like HackerOne, Bugcrowd, and Intigriti opened the gates — now it’s on you to walk through. If you’re looking for a path that blends freedom, technical challenge, and the thrill of real-world hacking, this is it. But know this: the bounties don’t come to tourists. They come to hunters.