The Reality of Full-Time Bug Bounty Hunting

In this blog post, I'll go over some of the most common challenges you'll face if you try bug bounty hunting as a full-time gig, as well as what you should expect.

I receive numerous messages each week asking how to get started with bug bounty hunting because of my experience and active involvement in the bug bounty space. However, after speaking with people, it becomes clear that many have internalised the notion of bug bounty hunting as a way to escape their monotonous lives. While I am happy to give advice and support people in achieving their goals, I also believe it is my responsibility to be completely honest and explain why this preconceived concept is unrealistic for a significant proportion of the population, especially those who have recently transitioned to cybersecurity.

This blog post is not intended to discourage or demotivate you from pursuing your dreams and realising their full potential. Instead, it is a list of variables to be aware of so that you can have more realistic expectations when it comes to this topic. I have compiled a list of crucial factors that I believe are essential in determining whether full-time bug bounty hunting is realistic or even the best choice for you.

Not a Form of Stable Income

Firstly, bug bounty hunting as a full-time job is just not a financially secure profession. It's a pay-for-performance system that requires you to produce tangible results in exchange for money. There is a strong sense of security that comes with what you're accomplishing in other aspects of life, as opposed to being continually held in opposition to one solitary variable.

I can tell you from personal experience that you can make thousands one month and barely scrape by the next due to variables beyond your control, such as all of your submissions being flagged as duplicates. It's not always due to an inability to find vulnerabilities. Of course, for the majority of you, this isn't ideal since you most likely have responsibilities. I can only see this working if you have a significant financial safety net in place before making this commitment.

Skillset and Capability Requirements

Secondly, the level of expertise and capacity necessary to compete with other bug bounty hunters is incredibly high. When it comes to cybersecurity, there has recently been a lot of discussion regarding the notion of gatekeeping, but I disagree with those who say that this is the case. There is a severe talent disparity in the industry, and I do not believe that a beginner should attempt to transition into cybersecurity without first having a solid comprehension of the fundamentals.

Personally, I learned by spending months or even years researching various aspects of what is now known as cybersecurity. I went through a time when I was learning the basics. I didn't simply jump right in and start breaking things. It's akin to attempting to fly a jet without first knowing the controls and receiving training. Without a wide understanding of the numerous areas that make up what cybersecurity is, I feel it is difficult, if not impossible, to identify vulnerabilities.

What you will also find is that the public bug bounty programs that you will initially start on will be completely free of most vulnerabilities because they have hundreds, if not thousands, of hackers on them, and the scope seldom changes.

Speaking of scope, many bug bounty hunters now have self-contained monitoring systems in place to identify external attack surface modification and dynamic content changes within hours. It's trivial to write a script that gathers all subdomains and stores them in a database, compares the values every couple of hours, and then sends a message via chat software when something new occurs.

People had this thought years ago, and I personally know of a bug bounty hunter who implemented this into his pipeline and made a lot of money in a short period of time. It's not groundbreaking, but he was one of the first to put a system in place to actually do this and act on it.

So, what I'm basically saying is that there are so many new strategies being created that keeping up with them all requires a lot of research on its own. Strong comprehension of theory is not going to enable you to become a full-time bug bounty hunter. People who are genuinely successful in this space have built their own methodology and approach, which they have been updating for years.

13 Hackers Surpassed $500,000 in Lifetime Earnings

600,000 Total Registered Hackers

150,000 Total Vulnerabilities Reported

$80,000,000 Total in Bounties Paid Out

6 Hackers Surpassed $1,000,000 in Lifetime Earnings

146 Hackers Earned a Total of $100,000 In Earnings

The above statistics from the 2020 industry report produced by HackerOne demonstrate that the talent barrier to becoming a full-time bug bounty hunter is quite high. These figures, in my opinion, suggest that only a small number of individuals with advanced skills and expertise in cybersecurity are able to thrive in this field.

Motivation and Energy

Thirdly, the amount of drive and energy necessary to maintain the level of consistency required in full-time bug bounty hunting is extraordinary. To be able to perform efficiently and consistently, you must have a propensity, which necessitates a tremendous amount of discipline. You may experience burnout in the first few weeks because you are pursuing something that is lucrative and appealing through a sense of success measured in the actual identification process, and then diminishing it by measuring the result of accomplishment through the monetary reward at the end.

It's difficult to be successful at something when you're chasing it for the sake of fulfilling your responsibilities rather than your own personal success and happiness; ultimately, you'll reach a point where it's no longer enjoyable.

With regular employment or most financial streams, you can have a few bad days where you're not performing well and not much changes in terms of the overall outcome. However, with full-time bug bounty hunting, every day where you're not putting proactive effort into a program is a missed opportunity to fulfill your responsibilities. You can't afford to have a rough few days, and since everyone is human, this isn't something you can plan for. Hence, the importance of a financial safety net.

Geographical Location Restrains

Fourthly, some people's desire to work as a full-time bug hunter is hampered by demographics. Bug bounty payouts are frequently given in US dollars, which, in many cases, provide a better return on investment because many countries have lower living costs than the UK or the US.

Take Argentina, for example, where, according to Time Doctor, the average monthly wage is $400. Full-time bug bounty hunting in Argentina would be a considerably more reasonable and realistic objective because this specific monetary value is equivalent to less than one vulnerability payout on most bug bounty programs.

Overall Conclusion and Advice

So, based on everything above, my advice to people who want to use full-time bug bounty hunting to gain more flexibility and freedom in their daily lives is to look into freelancing or independent consulting, where the outcome is guaranteed regardless of the overall quality of the result. Of course, there may be issues with invoices not being paid on time, but they are trivial in comparison to what you might face with full-time bug bounty hunting when it comes to performance.