Demystifying Bug Bounties: Insights from a Decade of Experience - Yassine Aboukir

Bug bounties have gained popularity as a well-established process within organizations with a mature security posture. Throughout the last decade, I have been an active member of the bug bounty community and have had the privilege of managing such programs for several high-profile organizations, including Airbnb, the US military, Spotify, Sony, PayPal, and Slack. Additionally, I have also taken part in these programs as a hacker and have successfully identified over a thousand security vulnerabilities. This experience has proved invaluable in advancing my skills, mindset, and hacking methodology, allowing me to identify better and higher severity bugs over time, leading to increased payouts in return. During this presentation, we will deconstruct the concept of bug bounties and share insights and lessons learned from my experience as both a hacker and a bug bounty program manager. Furthermore, I will walk you through some of my favorite technical bugs that I have uncovered during my journey.