Skip to main content
Dantes.io Logo
Dantes.io

Best resources to learnBug Bounty Hunting

Study sheet

Bug bounty programmes pay researchers for responsibly reported vulnerabilities. You will learn reconnaissance, common web vulnerability classes, reporting, and how to practise legally on labs and platforms.

6 resources · · How we curate

📺YouTube(1)

youtube

The Bug Hunter's Methodology v4.0 - Recon Edition (NahamCon 2020)

Recon is the skill that sets bounty hunting apart from general web security, and this talk is the most-cited free treatment of it. Some named tools have moved on since 2020, but the framework still holds. Jason Haddix's conference talk on wide-scope bug bounty reconnaissance. It covers finding a target's acquisitions and ASNs, enumerating subdomains, scraping and brute-forcing, port scanning and screenshotting, and chaining these into an automated recon workflow that maps the attack surface.

intermediate🇬🇧

🎓Courses(1)

course

Hacker101

This is the canonical free on-ramp and the only one built specifically for bounty hunting. It ties learning straight to legal practice: CTF progress earns invitations to real private programmes. HackerOne's free web security class for aspiring bug bounty hunters. Video lessons cover common web vulnerability classes and testing approach, and a real-world-inspired CTF supplies practice targets. Solving CTF flags earns private bounty programme invitations.

beginner🇬🇧

📚Books(3)

book

zseano's Methodology

A free 71-page PDF in which a full-time hunter sets out his approach to web bug bounties: the questions he asks while testing, his basic toolkit, the issues he checks first, choosing a programme, taking notes, expanding attack surface and automating repeat checks. It covers what textbooks skip: how an experienced hunter actually works a target step by step, and how to pick programmes. Its focus is mindset and workflow, not a catalogue of bug classes, so it pairs with the Academy.

intermediate🇬🇧
bookPaid

Bug Bounty Bootcamp: The Guide to Finding and Reporting Web Vulnerabilities

A 416-page guide in four parts: choosing programmes and writing reports; environment setup, Burp Suite and reconnaissance; 16 web vulnerability classes with detection and escalation steps; and advanced techniques including source code review, Android apps, API testing and fuzzing. This is the most complete single book on the whole bounty workflow: programme selection, recon, vulnerability classes, escalation and reporting. It is newer than Real-World Bug Hunting and more methodical, while that book is organised around case studies, so the two complement each other.

intermediate🇬🇧
bookPaid

Real-World Bug Hunting: A Field Guide to Web Hacking

This is the standard 'learn from real paid reports' book. Every bug class is tied to a disclosed bounty and its payout, which teaches what programmes actually reward. It also has dedicated chapters on finding programmes and writing reports. Each chapter explains one web vulnerability class, such as open redirects, CSRF, XXE, SSRF, OAuth flaws, race conditions and subdomain takeovers. It then walks through real paid bounty reports against Twitter, Facebook, Google and Uber.

beginner🇬🇧

🎙️Podcasts(1)

podcast

Critical Thinking - Bug Bounty Podcast

A weekly technical podcast by full-time bug bounty hunters. Episodes break down recent write-ups, new exploitation techniques, client-side and AI attack research, and hunting strategy, often with top researchers as guests. Over 190 episodes. This keeps intermediate and advanced hunters up to date. Techniques change faster than books, and this is the densest technical source focused only on bounties. I

advanced🇬🇧
Share this topic

More in Cybersecurity

See all 17 topics in Cybersecurity →

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best free resources to learn Bug Bounty Hunting?

Dantes has curated 6 resources for Bug Bounty Hunting, including 1 YouTube videos, 3 books, 1 courses, 1 podcasts. All resources are hand-picked for quality — no algorithmic filler. Browse the full list above to find the format that works best for you.

Is Bug Bounty Hunting hard to learn?

Bug Bounty Hunting is approachable at the beginner level — there are resources here specifically for those starting from scratch. As you progress, intermediate and advanced material is also available to take your skills further.

What types of Bug Bounty Hunting learning resources are available on Dantes?

For Bug Bounty Hunting, Dantes has curated 1 YouTube videos, 3 books, 1 courses, 1 podcasts. Each resource type serves a different learning style: videos and YouTube for visual learners, books for depth, courses for structured progression, and websites for quick reference.

How does Dantes select Bug Bounty Hunting resources?

Dantes is an algorithm-free learning directory. Resources are hand-curated based on quality, accuracy, and usefulness — not engagement metrics or paid placements. The goal is to surface the best learning material for Bug Bounty Hunting, whether it's a free YouTube series, a classic textbook, or an open courseware from a top university.

Go deeper

Test your understanding of Bug Bounty Hunting

Explain it out loud. An AI tutor listens and asks questions that expose gaps you didn't know you had.