As mentioned earlier, the course is highly practical
and you're gonna learn everything by example,
by actually hacking and discovering bugs
into real life examples, real life websites.
But before we go ahead and start bug hunting,
I want to cover some terminology
that I think is crucial for you to understand.
Now, you might already know this,
so if you do, you can skip this lecture,
but I highly recommend not skipping it,
because it's only a few minutes,
and I'm sure you're gonna learn a thing or two.
So the main thing that I wanna cover in this lecture
is what do we mean by bug hunting,
and how does it compare to pen testing,
which is something that I cover in my other courses.
So let's focus on bug hunting and let's focus on the goal.
And the goal of a bug hunt,
is to discover bugs in a target application or a website.
These bugs could be very simple.
For example, here the bugs that fall
under the information disclosure category,
will simply just show you information
that you're not supposed to be able to see.
So for example, you might be able to see
parts of the source code of the application.
Now that's not gonna allow you to hack the server,
It's not gonna compromise the server,
but it can possibly be used
combined with other information
and other bugs, to hack the server.
So the fact that you have an information disclosure,
the fact that you're able to see parts of the source code,
is enough to be considered as a bug.
And in a bug bounty program,
you will be paid a bounty or money for it.
Another example is broken access control vulnerabilities,
which will allow you to see information
that belong to other users and possibly modify it.
Again, that's not gonna allow you to hack into the server.
It's not gonna compromise the server,
but being able to do that,
will cause loss of customer trust.
So customers that use this application,
are not gonna want to use it,
because hackers can see their private information
and if they know that,
they're gonna lose trust in this application.
So it's bad to the business owners
or to the people that are running the target application.
And that's why,
if you discover a broken access control vulnerability
and report the bug,
you will probably get a bounty for it or cash.
Another example is injection vulnerabilities.
And these are very, very dangerous
and actually can allow you or allow a hacker
to gain full control and hack the target server.
So the point that I'm trying to get across
is these bugs will not always
allow you to hack into the target website,
sometimes they'll simply disclose some information,
and that is enough for you to submit a report
and get a reward for it.
And don't worry about all of these names
and all of these categories and what they mean.
We will cover them in details in the future step by step.
So, I'm just using this in here to get the point across.
Once you master this, the rest is very easy.
So you're gonna have to find a target
and I'm gonna show you how to find many targets
that have valid bug bounty programs,
so you can discover bugs in them legally.
You're gonna apply the information
that you learned in this course
to discover these bugs.
And once you discover a bug, you're gonna report it.
And I'm also gonna cover the reporting process
and how to write a valid report.
If the report is valid, you're gonna get a reward.
And once you have your reward, you're gonna go ahead
and discover more bugs in the same target,
or you could actually go ahead
and find another target,
and discover bugs in it and repeat.
So finding targets and reporting is very, very easy.
I'm gonna be covering that at the end of the course,
because it's so easy. And we're gonna be spending most
of this course learning how to discover these bugs
and vulnerabilities in different scenarios,
in different examples, and how to bypass security,
and actually get them to work.
So as you can see in bug bounty programs,
you are a freelancer
and you have the freedom with many things.
So you have the freedom of selecting your target.
'Cause like I said, there is a lot of websites
that already have bug bounty programs.
So you can go ahead and test them whenever you want.
You have the freedom of your own time,
you select the time that you wanna do the tests,
so you're not tied up to a work schedule.
You can test them at any time you want.
You can work at night, you can work in the morning,
you can do it part-time if you want.
It's completely up to you.
You also have the freedom
of selecting which bugs you want to discover.
So throughout this course,
we're gonna be covering
a large number of bugs and vulnerabilities.
And we're covering the top 10 most common ones as well.
But at the end of the course, you might decide
that I like injection vulnerabilities the most,
they are not boring, they are a lot of fun,
and I wanna always just test for them.
So you can go ahead and test all of the websites
that have bug bounty programs
for injection vulnerabilities.
You don't have to test them for everything.
So you have the freedom of selecting the target,
You have the freedom of your own time,
you select the time that you wanna do the tests,
and you also have the freedom
of selecting the vulnerability that you want,
or the bug that you want to look for.
Now in a pentest, you actually have only one target,
because a company or a website owner
or an application owner is gonna approach you
and tell you, I want you to test the security
of my application.
And the goal is not to discover bugs.
The goal is actually to hack that target.
And to do that, you're gonna be discovering bugs
and vulnerabilities and exploit it.
So you have another step, the exploitation step.
You have to exploit the bugs
and vulnerabilities that you find
in order to hack into the target server.
So in a pentest, you have an extra step in here,
which is to exploit the bugs to hack into the target.
And that's why I actually have a website hacking course,
because the goal is different.
The goal is actually to hack the target.
It's not to simply discover bugs in it,
because like I said some bugs
are not even gonna allow you to hack into the target.
So they're not that important when it comes to a pentest.
Now, as you can see in a pentest
you actually do not have a lot of freedom.
So you have only one target and you can't select it.
The target approaches you, the website owner,
or the application owner approaches you,
and asks you to pen test their application.
You also don't have the freedom
of doing it in your own time.
So there is usually a time limit on the contract,
a week or two or a month,
but you can't just do it whenever you want.
And finally, you also don't have the freedom
of selecting your bugs.
So you have to test the application
for all of the possible bugs and vulnerabilities.
You have to guarantee full cover.
So again, that's different compared to bug bounty programs,
because you can select the bug, you can select the target,
and you can do it in your own time.