December 2015 Summaries

This researcher, Jared Perry, has a 100% acceptance rate on Bugcrowd, demonstrating his expertise in bug bounty hunting. He started his career in information security at university and began applying testing techniques using Burp Suite after receiving a license. Over the past two years, he has honed his skills by working with smart colleagues as a Security Consultant and attending security conferences to stay up-to-date with industry trends. Jared's approach emphasizes finding straightforward issues first, then focusing on more complex features, and he attributes his motivation to the challenge and potential for success in each hunt. As bug bounties continue to grow in popularity, Jared believes they will become increasingly widespread and competitive, potentially leading to higher payouts as companies vie for top bounty hunters.

Justin Steven is a Bugcrowd bounty hunter from Australia who has been actively participating in the bug bounty community since its launch. He started his journey in security research by admiring phreaks and hackers, and later pursued a degree in incident response before landing an internal gig at a tech company. Justin's focus areas include TOCTOU race conditions, functional/logic bugs, and Insecure Direct Object Refs. He is motivated by the community, continuous learning, and the thrill of the chase. To other bounty hunters, he advises sticking to scope, being proactive in reporting bugs, and having fun while doing so. Justin believes that bug bounties have a bright future due to their effectiveness as a flexible QA resource, but also hopes that companies will prioritize proactive security engineering to reduce the need for reactive security measures.

Bugcrowd announced its October and November 2015 Hall of Fame winners, recognizing six top-performing researchers who earned bonuses for their hard work. Mico topped the leaderboard with 591 points in October, followed closely by a researcher with 410 points. In November, Nahamsec took first place with 460 points, tied with Mico's third-place finish. The top three researchers each received significant bonuses, with the highest earners receiving $2,500. These achievements demonstrate the importance of submitting high-severity bugs to Bugcrowd, as they can result in substantial rewards and even invitations to private bounty programs.