Nuclei is the cheat code. It has 4,000+ vulnerability templates. If a bug was reported anywhere in the world, Nuclei probably has a template for it. Run it every morning while you have coffee.
You do not need expensive hardware. A standard laptop with 8GB RAM is enough. You need the right free software.
The next morning, Julian returned to the simulation. The takeover was a good start, but it was a low-severity payout. Viper had reset the environment.
"Lesson Two: Forget XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) for a moment. Look at the business logic. Companies care about money, not just code." bug bounty masterclass tutorial
Viper directed him to OmniCorp’s e-commerce platform. It was a sleek, modern site where users could buy digital credits.
Julian spent three hours reading the JavaScript source code on the checkout page. He didn't look for injected scripts; he looked for how the data was handled. He noticed a parameter in the API call when he added an item to the cart: "price": 50.00.
He tried changing the price to negative values. The server blocked it. He tried changing it to zero. Blocked. Nuclei is the cheat code
"The backend has validation checks," Julian muttered.
Viper’s message flashed: "Validation is usually a straight line. Try a curve."
Julian thought about the race condition. What if he sent two requests at the exact same millisecond? He fired up Burp Suite, a proxy tool used to intercept web traffic. He captured the request to purchase credits. He set up a "Parallel Attack," sending the exact same request 50 times simultaneously. You do not need expensive hardware
The server struggled to process the concurrency. It checked the balance for the first request—it was valid. But before it could deduct the balance for the second request, the third and fourth hit the database.
His screen refreshed. His account balance, which should have been empty, was now overflowing with credits. He had bought $1,000 worth of credits for $10.
"That is a Business Logic Flaw," Viper typed. "Impact: High. Payout: High. You didn't hack the code; you hacked the traffic."