🚀 How I Got My NASA Hall of Fame: A Unique Twist on Google Dorking🌌

Every bug bounty hunter dreams of seeing their name recognized by NASA. When you hear "NASA Hall of Fame," it sounds like something that requires chaining together a massive Remote Code Execution (RCE) or discovering a complex SQL injection. But sometimes, it just takes a step back, a fresh perspective, and a very basic bug.

Here is the story of how I secured my NASA Letter of Recognition (LOR) and proved that mindset often beats complexity. 👨‍💻✨

📉 The Bumpy Road to Success

Let me be honest: the journey was not easy. I didn't just log in, click a button, and get a bounty. Before this success, I submitted four reports to the NASA VDP on Bugcrowd. The result?

• 2 Informative (Info)
• 1 Duplicate
• 1 Accepted P4 (This one!)

NASA has a massive scope. When you are dealing with an infrastructure that large, the traditional automated workflow — enumerating millions of subdomains, checking for alive hosts, and fuzzing parameters — is exhausting. You end up drowning in noise. I realized I needed to shift my mindset away from relying heavily on automated scanners and focus more on precision.

🧠 The Strategy Shift: Rethinking Google Dorks

I started reading community write-ups and noticed a clear trend: everyone uses Google Dorks. But everyone uses them differently. Some hunters dork for exposed directories, others for hidden admin panels or log files (which is exactly how I ended up with those two "Info" reports).

I wanted to refine my approach. Instead of hunting for the most complex vulnerabilities, I decided to go back to basics. Basic bugs still get you a Hall of Fame!

I had an idea: What if I mixed advanced Google Dorking with one of the simplest bugs out there — Broken Link Hijacking?

You've probably heard of Broken Link Hijacking, but my approach was a bit different. Instead of blindly scanning pages with tools, I used Google Dorks to specifically filter and target old, forgotten corners of the NASA web infrastructure that automated crawlers usually miss.

🕸️ The Discovery: A 13-Year-Old Relic

My dorking strategy paid off. It led me to a 13-year-old news article sitting on *.*.nasa.gov (the highly trusted Laboratory domain).

site:example.com ("facebook.com" OR "instagram.com" OR "twitter.com" OR "youtube.com")
site:*.example.com ("facebook.com" OR "instagram.com" OR "twitter.com" OR "youtube.com")
site:*.*.example.com ("facebook.com" OR "instagram.com" OR "twitter.com" OR "youtube.com")

site:example.com ("facebook.com" OR "instagram.com" OR "twitter.com" OR "youtube.com")
site:*.example.com ("facebook.com" OR "instagram.com" OR "twitter.com" OR "youtube.com")
site:*.*.example.com ("facebook.com" OR "instagram.com" OR "twitter.com" OR "youtube.com")

Scrolling to the bottom of the article, I found a social media section: "Find Solar System Exploration at…"

The link was there, but it contained a subtle typographical error in the URL string:

• ❌ Incorrect: [https://social-media-page.com/oursolarssytem]
• ✅ Expected: [https://social-media-page.com/oursolarsystem]

Because of this typo, the link led to a completely unregistered page. It was totally abandoned.

⚠️ The Impact: Brand Impersonation

Why does this matter? Because that broken link originates from a highly trusted .gov domain.

An attacker could easily register that misspelled page, slap on some official NASA/JPL logos, and launch massive phishing campaigns. Users clicking the link from the official NASA website would have absolute zero reason to suspect they were landing on an attacker-controlled page.

To prove the impact for responsible disclosure without causing harm, I registered the page myself. I set up a defanged disclaimer stating it was created purely for VDP security research, proving the Brand Impersonation risk (CWE-601).

🏆 The Result & Takeaway

I submitted the report. The Bugcrowd team triaged it, NASA fixed the article, and a few days later, I received my official VDP Letter of Recognition! 📜

The biggest lesson here is about how you think. We often get tunnel vision, believing we need to find crazy RCEs or SQLis to get noticed. But stepping away from the complexity, thinking outside the box, and applying simple concepts in unique ways — like mixing targeted Dorks with old-school broken links — can yield amazing results.

Don't ignore the basics. Keep it simple, stay creative, and happy hunting! 💻🔥