5 min readNov 11, 2024

Jumping into Bug Bounty Automation

Are you tired of doing manual testing for 20+ hours and still not getting at least a small Low Hanging Bug and you did regret the 20+ hours you have wasted?

Then this post is for you because I will present you the methodology used by Bug Hunters. This Methodology used by Hunters to efficiently get their hands on Bounties before anyone could exploit them.

This is the Era of Bug Bounty Automation and Everyone is creating their own bounty generating automation then why are you getting behind them just you need a jump from Sideline to Fastlane and You can do it after reading this Post.

How did they do it ?earning bounties or get at Top of Leaderboard?

The answer to the question is very simple just using ‘Right Tools at Right Time’. That’s how they did it.

So, I am gonna stop reminding you the importance of the Automation in Bug Bounty because you are already feeling the Competence Gap between you and the Top at Leaderboard.

Here is the Tools but I put some effort into arranging them in categories :

1. Notification and Alerting Tools

Notify: Useful for sending notifications to different services like Slack, Discord, or email based on recon or scan results.

Nuclei: A powerful tool for templated vulnerability scanning, which can be combined with Notify for alerts on matched vulnerabilities.

Slack/Discord Webhooks: You can create custom alerts for tools (e.g., subdomain discovery or vulnerability scanning) and push results to Slack or Discord channels.

2. Recon and Enumeration Tools

Amass and Subfinder: Subdomain enumeration tools that can automate discovering assets related to a target.

Github-Dork: Searches GitHub repositories for sensitive information or credentials related to the target.

Shuffledns: Combines brute-forcing and resolvers for fast subdomain enumeration.

3. Vulnerability Scanning and Testing Tools

Nuclei: Allows you to automate testing for known vulnerabilities with templates. You can configure it with automation scripts to notify you on critical vulnerabilities.

httpx: Quickly probes for active web services. It works well with Nuclei for identifying web services on discovered IPs and subdomains.

Jaeles: Similar to Nuclei, Jaeles uses templates to automate common security testing and can be set up for custom notifications.

Dalfox: Specifically for XSS vulnerability hunting, with automation potential for notifying on findings.

4. Automation Frameworks

ReconFTW: A complete framework that combines several tools for reconnaissance and vulnerability detection, with automation and notification support.

Osmedeus: A powerful, modular automation suite for reconnaissance and vulnerability testing that allows you to run a full workflow on targets.

Lazyrecon: A shell script that automates a range of reconnaissance tasks and is customizable for different targets.

5. Custom Scripting and CI/CD Pipelines

Custom Bash/Python Scripts: You can use scripting languages to automate and run multiple tools, combining their outputs and sending notifications when certain criteria are met.

CI/CD Pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI): These can run your scripts or tools periodically or when certain events occur, then notify you based on results.

6. Continuous Monitoring and Change Detection

dnsx: A tool for DNS recon and validation that can run continuously to detect new subdomains as they appear.

Chaos: Maintained by Project Discovery, this is a continuously updated database of domains and subdomains that you can monitor for new assets.

BBQSQL: Automates blind SQL injection testing, especially useful for continuous testing across multiple parameters.

Httprobe: Automates probing of URLs or IPs to quickly check if HTTP services are running, which can be useful for tracking live hosts as they come online.

7. Automation and Integration for Reporting and Logging

ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana): For aggregating and analyzing data from different tools, ELK lets you visualize and query results across multiple recon and scanning tools.

Splunk: Similarly, Splunk can collect logs from recon and vulnerability tools, with alerting based on specific patterns.

Cortex: This is a tool for automating intelligence collection and analyzing incidents, which can be helpful for continuous bug bounty hunting.

8. Data Processing and Filtering Tools

JQ: A command-line JSON processor that’s helpful for extracting and filtering data from the JSON outputs of many bug bounty tools.

GF (Gf-Patterns): This is a collection of grep patterns for filtering results, especially useful when working with large amounts of data from recon tools.

SQLmap: You can automate SQL injection testing and integrate it into broader workflows, extracting and processing sensitive data automatically.

9. Server and Infrastructure Tools for Scale

AWS Lambda or GCP Functions: These serverless functions can run scripts or tools on demand or on a schedule, allowing automation at scale.

Docker: Dockerizing tools enables easy deployment of multiple tools in the same environment, which is useful for quickly setting up or scaling workflows.

10. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Detection and Payload Injection

KXSS: Finds potential XSS injection points and can be paired with automation scripts for continuous monitoring.

XSStrike: Focuses on XSS detection with advanced payloads, and it can automate payload testing across multiple inputs.

11. Advanced Workflow Automation and Orchestration

GitLab CI/CD and GitHub Actions: These platforms allow you to automate bug bounty workflows based on triggers, such as new commits, repository changes, or cron jobs.

OWASP ZAP (with ZAP CLI): You can integrate ZAP’s automated scanning into pipelines for continuous web vulnerability scanning.

Burp Suite Automation with Burp API: Allows you to trigger scans or process scan results programmatically for continuous testing.

12. Password and Credential Leakage Detection

GitRob: Scans GitHub repositories for sensitive information like credentials, API keys, and secrets.

TruffleHog: Searches Git repositories for secrets using regex and entropy algorithms, helping find leaked credentials.

13. Cloud Configuration Security

Cloudsplaining and ScoutSuite: Help automate the scanning of cloud configurations (AWS, GCP, Azure) for common misconfigurations.

Pacu: An AWS exploitation framework you can use for post-exploitation analysis and identifying security misconfigurations in AWS environments.

14. Exploit Development Automation

Ffuf: An HTTP fuzzer useful for automating fuzzing requests across many parameters. Often used for content discovery but can also be adapted for fuzzing specific vulnerabilities.

Parameth: Helps to find hidden or commonly used parameters in HTTP requests, which could reveal potential attack vectors when automated.

15. General Workflow Automation Frameworks

XSSHunter: Helps automate XSS payload delivery and detection by logging and notifying you of any triggers.

Celerystalk: Designed to automate the process of vulnerability discovery using pre-configured workflows with popular tools, providing notifications when interesting results are found.

AutoRecon: Designed to be a wrapper around common recon and enumeration tools, executing them in sequence and storing results in an organized way for easy review.

Each of these tools can be used individually or in combination to create a highly automated bug bounty pipeline, making it easier to monitor, test, and receive alerts on potential security issues across multiple targets. So I will end here and if you need to more post on this Topic then just follow me and Drop a comment. Until then I am here for you.

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