This isn’t another bug bounty story meant to make your eyes sparkle with massive payouts. This is the story of how a normal, boring evening, a forgotten bill and a glitchy app launched my bug bounty journey. And more importantly, it’s about how you can start seeing the world with a hacker’s mindset, too.
A Perfect example of how a normal, frustrating experience turns into a bug hunter’s aha! moment.
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It all started around 8 PM on a noisy train platform. The train was late and I was just scrolling on my phone when that sinking feeling hit me — I forgot to pay my credit card bill.
I quickly pulled up a popular payment app I used — let’s call it PayApp — to handle the transaction. I went through the steps, entered the amount and hit “Pay”. A loading spinner appeared, then a message flashed on the screen:
“Payment Failed.”
Great, then another message pops saying:
“Bank server is down again.”
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Annoying, but it happens. I was about to put my phone back in my pocket when a notification from my bank popped up: