How I Went from Zero Experience to Finding Valid Bugs on HackerOne

About Me: I hunt under the handle I1ce on HackerOne.

I started my bug bounty journey in October 2022 without any prior cybersecurity experience. Looking back, those early days were filled with trial, error, and a lot of noisy recon.

Like many beginners, I relied heavily on passive recon and third-party tools like Wayback Machine and VirusTotal. Most of my early reports weren't great, they usually ended up closed as Informative or Duplicate because they lacked a clear, demonstrable business impact.

Here is how I shifted my strategy to consistently find valid, paid vulnerabilities, along with the key lessons I learned along the way.

1. Shift Your Focus: From Spraying Recon to Deep Application Testing

The biggest turning point in my bug hunting was changing how I approach a target:

• Read the Scope First: Always know what is explicitly allowed, out of scope, or restricted.
• Understand the Business: Read the target's product documentation to understand how the application is supposed to work.
• Test Core Features: Instead of spending hours running passive tools against subdomains, test the main functional areas of the application manually.

Focusing on business logic and core functionality yields bugs that security teams actually care about and are willing to pay for.

2. Essential Resources for Beginners

If you are just starting out with no prior experience, build a solid foundation before jumping straight into bounty hunting. These two resources helped me the most:

1. PortSwigger Web Security Academy: Complete the learning paths and practice in the free labs to understand how vulnerabilities work and how to exploit them properly.
2. HackerOne Hacktivity: Read disclosed, real-world reports to see how other hackers present their findings and explain business impact.

Pro Tip:_ Once you understand basic vulnerabilities, start hunting on a Vulnerability Disclosure Program (VDP) first. VDPs don't pay cash, but they offer lower competition and a safe environment to build confidence before moving to paid programs._

3. Why I Cut Out AI and Doubled Down on Manual Testing

While AI tools are popular right now, I have paused using AI in my workflow to focus entirely on manual testing.

Security teams are currently flooded with low-quality "AI slop", generic, AI-generated reports that lack depth or accurate proof-of-concept. Relying on simple, core tools like Burp Suite and Browser DevTools forces you to truly understand the application, leading to far higher report quality and better relationships with triage teams.

If you enjoyed reading this feel free to follow me and or my Hackerone profile. Or connect with me on Linkedin at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomsayerssec/

Goodbye fellow Hackers!