$5000+ in Bounties, 20+ Bugs, 2 Hall of Fame : Finding Your First Bug with Exposed Celery Flower Dashboards

How a single reconnaissance finding led to a systematic vulnerability hunting approach that paid off big time

The Discovery That Started It All

Every bug hunter has that moment when a seemingly routine reconnaissance session reveals something unexpected. For me, it happened during a deep dive into a target’s infrastructure. While methodically mapping their digital footprint, I stumbled across something that would fundamentally change my approach to vulnerability hunting: an exposed Celery Flower dashboard.

Reference: https://github.com/mher/flower

At first glance, it looked like just another monitoring interface. But as I clicked through the various sections, what I found made my heart race - critical personally identifiable information (PII), transaction details, invoice data, and sensitive business logic all sitting there, completely unprotected. No authentication. No authorization. Just raw, sensitive data exposed to anyone who knew where to look.

That single finding netted me a substantial bounty, but more importantly, it sparked a question: If this target had this vulnerability, how many others might too?

From Single Target to Mass Hunting

The beauty of bug hunting lies not just in finding individual vulnerabilities, but in recognizing patterns that can be systematically exploited across the internet. After my initial discovery, I shifted from target-specific reconnaissance to mass hunting using powerful search engines like Censys and Shodan.

The Methodology

The approach is surprisingly straightforward:

1. Discovery Phase: Use Censys and Shodan to identify publicly exposed Celery Flower dashboards

• Search for specific Flower interface signatures
• Look for default ports and URL patterns
• Filter for instances with no authentication barriers

Use the following dorks to mass-hunt for Flower Dashboards:

# Censys Dork
services.http.response.html_title: Flower
# Shodan Dork
http.title:"Flower" 

2. Enumeration Phase: Once you’ve found exposed dashboards, systematic exploration is key:

• Navigate through all available links
• Pay special attention to the task queue section
• Check worker nodes and task history
• Examine any data being processed or queued

3. Impact Assessment: Document the sensitivity of exposed data:

• Personal information (names, emails, addresses)
• Financial data (transaction IDs, payment details, invoices)
• Business logic and internal process information
• API keys or authentication tokens in task parameters

4. Severity Enhancement: Test administrative functions:

• Attempt to cancel running tasks
• Try to modify consumer configurations
• Test any available control functions

The Results Speak for Themselves

This systematic approach has been incredibly effective:

• 20+ confirmed vulnerabilities across different organizations
• 2 Hall of Fame recognitions from major bug bounty programs
  https://pickrr.com/hall-of-fame.html
  https://www.go-yubi.com/security-hall-of-fame/
• $5000+ in total bounty rewards
• Multiple critical and high-severity findings

But beyond the numbers, what’s truly concerning is how widespread this issue is. These aren’t sophisticated attacks requiring advanced exploitation techniques, they’re simple misconfigurations that expose incredibly sensitive data.

Real-World Impact Examples

Case Study 1: E-commerce Platform

Found transaction processing queues containing:

• Customer payment information eg: email and phone number
• Order details with shipping addresses
• Payment method and creation data

Case Study 2: Logistics Services

Discovered task queues processing:

• Order Details
• Customer Information
• Order Image
• Invoice Image

Case Study 3: Healthcare SaaS

Exposed queues revealed:

• Medical record and Customer PIIs
• Insurance claim information
• HIPAA-sensitive communications

The Bigger Picture: Why This Matters

The prevalence of exposed Celery Flower dashboards represents a broader security problem in modern application development. As organizations increasingly adopt microservices architectures and distributed task processing, they’re introducing new attack surfaces without adequately considering the security implications.

The Perfect Storm of Factors

1. Default Configurations: Celery Flower often ships with minimal security configurations
2. Development Oversight: Teams focus on functionality while security becomes an afterthought
3. Monitoring Blindspots: Organizations don’t realize these interfaces are publicly accessible
4. Data Processing Visibility: Modern applications process enormous amounts of sensitive data through task queues

Why These Vulnerabilities Are So Dangerous

The simplicity of exploitation makes these findings particularly concerning:

• No specialized tools required: Any web browser can access these dashboards
• Immediate data exposure: Sensitive information is visible without any additional exploitation
• Administrative capabilities: Ability to disrupt services by canceling tasks or modifying configurations
• Persistent access: Unlike many vulnerabilities, these remain accessible until properly secured

Lessons for Security Teams

If you’re responsible for application security, here are key takeaways:

Immediate Actions

• Audit all monitoring and administrative interfaces for public exposure
• Implement authentication on ALL administrative dashboards, regardless of perceived sensitivity
• Review default configurations for all third-party tools and services

Long-term Strategies

• Include task queue and monitoring security in your security review processes
• Implement network-level restrictions for administrative interfaces
• Regular external reconnaissance on your own infrastructure
• Security training focused on modern application architecture risks

For Bug Hunters

• Learn to recognize patterns that can be scaled across multiple targets
• Invest time in understanding the technologies your targets use
• Don’t overlook “boring” administrative interfaces, they often contain the most sensitive data
• Document your methodology for consistent, repeatable results

The Path Forward

The success I’ve had with this vulnerability class isn’t just about the bounties or recognition, it’s about demonstrating how fundamental security principles apply to modern infrastructure. Every new technology, every monitoring tool, every administrative interface introduces potential attack surface.

As bug hunters, our role isn’t just to find individual vulnerabilities, but to identify systemic security gaps that affect entire industries. The exposed Celery Flower dashboard issue is one example of how poor security defaults and insufficient security consideration in deployment can create widespread vulnerability.

Getting Started

If you’re new to bug hunting, this vulnerability class offers an excellent entry point:

• Low barrier to entry: No advanced technical skills required initially
• Clear impact demonstration: Sensitive data exposure is easy to document
• Scalable methodology: Success with one target can be replicated across many others
• Learning opportunity: Understanding task queues and distributed systems is valuable knowledge

Start with Censys and Shodan searches, learn to identify the signatures of exposed dashboards, and always remember: behind every monitoring interface is an organization that trusted their security team to protect their users’ data.