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Starting Bug Bounty With Zero Knowledge? Here’s the Exact Roadmap to Your First Valid Report
Bug bounty hunting sounds glamorous from the outside.
Stories of teenagers earning thousands of dollars by finding a single vulnerability make it feel like digital treasure hunting.
But when most people actually try to start, they hit the same wall.
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Acronyms everywhere: XSS, CSRF, SQLi, IDOR.
Tools they’ve never used.
Advice that assumes they already know where to begin.
The truth is simple: bug bounty hunting isn’t magic — it’s a process.
And if you follow the right order, it can be learned from absolute zero.
This article lays out a practical, no-nonsense roadmap from “I don’t know where to start” to submitting your first valid bug bounty report.
Phase 1: The Foundation Most Beginners Skip (Don’t)
Before you can break something, you need to understand how it works.
Many beginners rush straight into tools and payloads without understanding the basics.
This is the fastest way to burn out.
