In bug bounty hunting, reconnaissance is the battlefield—and automation is your tactical edge. When done right, automated recon doesn’t just save time—it uncovers vulnerabilities that others miss. I didn’t just try this. I scaled it. Optimized it. Weaponized it. And I found 100+ bugs. Here’s how you can replicate the process. The Problem with Manual Recon Manual recon is slow, repetitive, and error-prone. Subdomains are missed. Passive intel is limited. And fatigue sets in. To break through, I built a system that runs 24/7, with zero manual intervention after launch. ToolPurposeamassSubdomain enumerationsubfinderFast passive subdomain grabberhttpxProbe live domainsnucleiVulnerability template enginewaybackurlsOld URL discoverygf + qsreplaceParametric fuzzingdnsxDNS resolutionchaosPull domains from bug bounty scope Automation Logic Target Acquisition Pull domains from public bug bounty programs. Feed them into chaos and subfinder to extract subdomains. Liveness Check Use httpx to validate which hosts are alive. Eliminate dead targets early. Historical Discovery Scrape archived endpoints using waybackurls. Merge them into custom wordlists. Vulnerability Scanning Run nuclei with tuned templates for XSS, SSRF, IDOR, etc. Chain gf + qsreplace to test common injection points. Alerting & Logging Results logged daily. Notifications via Discord webhook when a critical or high is triggered. Results: 100+ Bugs, 20+ Valid Reports This system uncovered: Forgotten admin panels Exposed .git directories Open redirects Misconfigured CORS headers Leaky endpoints from old JavaScript files Over 20 reports were accepted by bounty platforms, and dozens of minor issues were confirmed by private programs. Lessons Learned Automation ≠ IntelligenceAutomated tools surface targets. You still need to investigate, validate, and exploit manually. Templates Are EverythingMost bounty hunters run nuclei with default templates. I built custom templates to test for program-specific flaws. Noise Reduction MattersWithout rate-limiting and proper filtering, your scans will trigger WAFs or get you banned. Time > SpeedI scheduled recon to run daily at off-peak hours, avoiding bans and allowing continuous passive discovery. Scaling It Further To make this system scalable: Dockerized the toolchain Scheduled with cron and screen Set up tmux logging for long scans Implemented email + Discord alerting Final Word Recon isn’t about brute force. It’s about efficient signal discovery at scale. If you want consistent wins in bug bounty programs, stop running subfinder once a week. Build a pipeline. Automate. Iterate. And let the system do what humans can’t.
