Resources-for-Beginner-Bug-Bounty-Hunters/assets/basics.md

Resources-for-Beginner-Bug-Bounty-Hunters

Table of Contents

1. HTTP basics
2. Networking basics
3. Programming Basics
4. Automation

HTTP basics

In order to be able to learn what and how an application works, you need to be able to understand how you are communicating with it. This section is dedicated to all the resources to understand the HTTP basics.

• All in one resource: https://www.hacker101.com/sessions/web_in_depth HTTP basics Cookie security HTML parsing MIME sniffing Encoding sniffing Same-Origin Policy CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery)
• Request form https://www.tutorialspoint.com/http/http_requests.htm
• Response form https://www.tutorialspoint.com/http/http_responses.htm
• Response codes https://www.tutorialspoint.com/http/http_status_codes.htm
• URL Encoding https://www.tutorialspoint.com/http/http_url_encoding.htm
• Status Codes https://www.tutorialspoint.com/http/http_status_codes.htm

Networking basics

Recon is a common terminology used in bug bounties. It’s great if you are already using tools to scan a range of IPs for open ports or find subdomain, however, you should first understand why these things matter and how they work.

• Terminology https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/an-introduction-to-networking-terminology-interfaces-and-protocols
• What is an IP? https://commotionwireless.net/docs/cck/networking/learn-networking-basics/
• What are ports? https://www.utilizewindows.com/list-of-common-network-port-numbers/
• What is DNS? https://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/an-introduction-to-learning-and-using-dns-records--cms-24704
• Intermediate Security Testing with Kali Linux 2 http://www.penguintutor.com/linux/basic-network-reference
• Network Fundamentals, A 19 part Video Series about Networking well explained for Beginners

Programming Basics

Being a great programmer is not a requirement to be a successful hacker. However, having the ability to make an educated guess, may increase your chances of successfully identifying and exploiting an issue. In a number of cases, you may need to automate your work or know more than just the “basics” in order to escalate a bug with a medium severity to high/critical.

• HTML: HTML is very easy to learn and there are a ton of free resources for it. If you are interested in learning about XSS this should be your first step. If you prefer an interactive tool to learn about Javascript, I highly recommend Codecademy! https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-html https://www.w3schools.com/html/

• JavaScript: Once you have familiarized yourself with HTML, you should understand Javascript since you will be using it to exploit XSS vulnerabilities. The usage of Javascript isn’t just limited to when you are exploring XSS, so it’s a very handy programming language to know. If you prefer an interactive tool to learn about Javascript, I highly recommend Codecademy! https://www.codecademy.com/learn/introduction-to-javascript

• SQL: You may have guessed It already, but you won’t be able to exploit complex SQL injection vulnerabilities before having any SQL knowledge. As always, if you prefer an interactive course, feel free to use Codecademy! https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-sql http://www.sqlcourse.com/

Automation

You are welcome to skip this section if you think you’ll never need any automation or in depth web application knowledge. However I think learning bash in addition to one the following four languages may help you work smarter rather than harder.

• Bash
  • https://www.learnshell.org/
  • https://explainshell.com/
• Ruby
  • https://www.learnrubyonline.org/
• Python
  • https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/
• Additional Resources:
  • https://www.codecademy.com/learn/paths/web-development
  • https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/
  • http://www.sqlcourse.com/
  • https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Programming_Fundamentals/Advanced_Flowcharting

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