In this article, I will talk about Bug Bounty programs, their pros and cons, and how they make money on it.
First of all, let's define what a Bug Bounty is: a program that pays a reward for discovering problems in the security of a company's services and applications. In Russian, this is most appropriately translated as "Hunting for bugs."
Those. this is a set of rules for "interaction" with the company's information resources. Usually it includes the rules of the program, a list of resources, a description of accepted vulnerabilities, and the amount of remuneration. In the classic version, this is a description of what can be "broken" and how much a bughunter will receive for a particular vulnerability.
This is what Bug Bounty looks like from the outside. What does it give the company? First of all, a continuous process of "strength testing": specialists with different levels of knowledge, tools and time zones attack the company's resources non-stop. On the part of the company, resources are involved in:
- systems monitoring;
- response and processing of reports;
- bug-fixing (fast or not very fast).
Bug Bounty pros and cons
Now let's dwell on the pros and cons of Bug Bounty programs.
The obvious benefits would be:
- continuity of the testing process;
- cost (payments of remuneration will be less than the cost of hired specialists);
- great coverage.
The obvious cons would be:
- a large number of duplicates;
- a huge number of scanner reports (faults);
- narrow focus;
- challenging and "proofing" vulnerabilities.
Often, many bug hunters participating in Bug Bounty programs limit themselves to their "crown" chips and do not explore something else, or vice versa, put everything under the scanners in the hope of catching at least something. This gives a diverse, but not complete, approach to testing. Also, a huge number of scanner false positives can overwhelm the development team with unnecessary work (this includes additional checks and responses for each report - which can be a lot).
Open programs
Most companies are represented on aggregator sites such as HackerOne or BugCrowd.
Many Russian companies have opened both their own programs and profiles on HackerOne. Among them are such companies as: Yandex, Mile.ru, QiWi, Vkontakte and many others. What can I say, even if the Pentagon has its own program. (Hack into the Pentagon, get the money and stay free - like a hacker's dream, but already a harsh reality).
The average payout ranges from $200 to $1,000, depending on the vulnerability and its location.
Here, for example, is an estimate of the cost of discovered vulnerabilities in the Bug Hunt program - Yandex:
- A01. Injections 170,000 rubles. (critical services); 43000 rub. (other services).
- A02. Cross-Site Scripting - A05. Cross-site forgery of requests 17,000 rubles. (critical services); 8500 rub. (other services).
- A06. Web environment configuration errors - A10. Open redirection 8500 rubles (critical services); 5500 rub. (other services).
The most "expensive mistakes"
During the bug bounty programs, many companies have paid out total sums of $ 5 or more with zeros (only Facebook paid out more than $5,000,000 in bounties), but there were also rewards that were quite impressive in themselves. What is most interesting is that the bugs were of a cosmic scale, but sometimes they were found almost at random:
The Uruguayan schoolboy Ezekiel Pereira stumbled upon the bug that brought him $10,000 “out of boredom”. A student aspiring to a career in information security was fiddling with Google services using Burp Suite to spoof the host header in a request to the App Engine server (*.appspot.com). Most of the attempts returned "404", but on one of the internal sites - yaqs.googleplex.com - it suddenly turned out that there was no verification by login / password and the absence of any hints of protection.
Known Vulnerability Identification:
The Russian discovered a bug in the software of the social network, which, using a special picture, allowed arbitrary code to be run on its servers. To do this, it was necessary to take advantage of a vulnerability in the ImageMagick service, designed to quickly scale and convert images in the Facebook news feed, reports Lenta.ru. Leonov accidentally stumbled upon a bug while testing a third-party service, studied it and submitted all the necessary information to Facebook technical services, which fixed the vulnerability in November 2016. As a result, the social network paid the hacker a reward of $40,000. In 2014, cybersecurity specialist Reginaldo Silva received a record $33,500 from Facebook.
Or the landmark Facebook hack and discovery of a backdoor in the system that brought the researcher $ 10,000: How I hacked into Facebook and discovered someone else's backdoor.
I want to participate, what should I do?
For those who decide to try their hand and opportunities in finding errors, I can advise several main steps that will lead to victory:
Follow the news. The scope of the program has been updated - run to check new services. Did the manufacturer add new functionality, expand the old one, or integrate a third-party service? - a big opportunity, especially in a complex infrastructure, to make a mistake.
Perseverance. Rigorous research, do not miss any details. It is good practice to periodically compare the results of past checks with the current state of the system.
Search. Seek and find. Most major bugs are found on "non-public" subdomains and directories. This is where subdomain detection tools and good dictionary sheets for brute-forcing directories and subdomains come in handy.
Study. Set aside automatic scanners, sift through a web application (and most Bug Bounty is related to the web) like sand through a sieve to find grains of gold. Here I recommend using Burp Suite or Owasp Zap - there are no better tools. Almost all big bounty victories are the result of working with these tools (you can see it on almost any public report).
Explore. Download the local research app if possible. Read the reports of other participants - it can give food for thought. The same Facebook hack - many Russian bug hunters saw this subdomain, even tried to do something with it - but "didn't screw it up". A good help for this will be the resource: The unofficial HackerOne disclosure Timeline
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Requirements to editors the most common - know Russian language, perfectly able to deal with Russian texts. How create articles? If you create articles, then in addition to editing, you will earn more, 5-6 times more on new texts.
Do not expect sky-high profits, earnings on editing texts brings money but not a million a month. You can get a maximum of twenty, and at first even less, per month for editing the text.
Edit texts for money - you can earn money on this! and writing texts
Where do they pay money for editing (texts)?
you for pay for texts if you get settled (sign up) on Etxt . In your profile, indicate that you are editing. The orders themselves are in the section - choose a topic, and you will write or edit texts for a lot of money.
The Etxt exchange edits for 12 rubles, you can set the price lower and then you may have a job.
How to edit so that the quality is pleasant (to the customer)?
Try to write as if for yourself - without errors, clearly and not too abstruse. This is called quality (text).
Types of errors: grammatical, stylistic and spelling, punctuation. You must be able to fix...
If you are allowed to collaborate with a copywriter, do not load him with comments. Most likely, only work that has been done and proofread soon is expected of you. That is the ideal text.
Where do editors work?
Editors work as moderators on the article exchanges: Advego, Etxt and Text. It's not easy to get there. But write to technical support or to the Administration, maybe there is a place. Once there was a set of proofreaders on Text, now only authors are required there.
The work of proofreaders is to check the author's texts. The articles that are on the exchange are all checked. This is the job of an editor.
An article has arrived at the store - you should check it.
Automatic editing for money:
There are programs that can detect typos - this is Text . The online check is free and makes the editor's job easier
Why manually subtract anyway?
The program correct spelling, but you still need to know the rules of punctuation. To get money for the text, you need to remove all the errors. So you need to read and correct all the flaws.
Why should you write too?
On, it's easier to make money by writing texts. Believe me - such work is really on the shaft! But no one wants to give texts to edit. So make money by writing.
petty rules
It is difficult to check texts that are not your own subject. Need to know the niche. To understand where there is a semantic error, and where everything is OK. A simple example: the months of the Chinese calendar. They are numbered differently usually, but the work was returned to me with an error: more precisely, a remark. “Why is it August, the seventh month? He is the eighth. After a dialogue with the editor, he understood the error and the issue is closed.
Both the proofreader and the writer must be competent! Fortunately, there is the Internet, and in any subject you can get the first concepts in five seconds
Where to work?
Work for the editor is provided on the exchanges - Advego, Etxt. There is also Text , but there are fewer orders
You can get a job as an editor on any exchange if a vacancy is open. While it is closed - earn texts. Do a census of someone else's text, they pay for it. Retell in your own words, rewriting is the name of constant work on the stock exchange. There are always a lot of tasks, so you won’t be left without earnings ..
On the Advego, Text exchanges, you only need to find errors, in Etxt - correct them. Work is different
Editors and copywriters, on the Etxt exchange they receive at least five rubles. For every 1000 characters written or read. Strive to ensure that the demand for your work is always great! If you do texts - do it wisely, edit - do not leave a chance for a mistake (in the text). This is an intellectual job - to create articles on the Internet, for the Internet itself ...
Obvious mistakes happen in almost every bookmaker's office. And it is not the bookmakers who have to pay for these mistakes, but more often the players themselves. If the office made a mistake, then it reserves the right to cancel all bets and actions that were made by the players as a result of it.
Any bet on an erroneous odds, event, etc. by English-speaking players is called Palp. Most bookmakers cancel such bets even before the start of events, but some bookmakers can cancel bets during matches or even after the events have ended.
Consequences of "wrong" bets
Very often, “erroneous” bets are made by inexperienced arbitrageurs. Since this bet will be canceled, the player risks "losing" on the other shoulder. The arber needs to quickly find an alternative bet in order to play a surebet, or to minimize his losses.
Another problem is that players who make "wrong" bets fall into the suspicious category. Bookmakers can accuse them of arbitrage betting or cappering. BC believes that you are using their mistakes in order to cash in. As a result, the offices significantly reduce the maximums to the players. After all, the less a bettor can bet, the less he can win.
How to find and avoid mistakes
For a long-term game in the bookmaker's office, the player needs to learn how to identify obvious mistakes on the part of the bookmaker. However, the very definition of “obvious error” is interpreted differently by different sites and companies. No firm provides a clear decoding or range. Therefore, players have to rely on themselves. There are several ways and signs that will help you identify an error in the line and not fall into the trap of bookmakers.
Check bookmaker odds with market odds
Did you suddenly find an extremely profitable quote in your bookmaker? Do not rush to bet on it. Compare it with market rates. The network has many services for monitoring and comparing bookmaker quotes. The erroneous coefficient differs significantly from the market supply. But if the range of quotes in different bookmakers is large, then you most likely just found a value.
You will learn to identify erroneous ratios over time. Checking quotes will become a routine, besides, you will be better able to analyze the process of setting odds. You need to remember a few basic things. For example, the difference between quotes 1.2 and 1.1 is very large, and between 10 and 12 is small.
This is if we consider them through a percentage. At the same time, odds that are too high (anything over 100) are rarely wrong. In some bookmakers, quotes, in principle, cannot exceed 100. And in others, they can get a value of 1000.
Who is the favorite and who is the underdog
Arbitrage situations regularly arise in matches where the chances of teams / players winning are approximately equal. That is, the coefficients are in the region of 2.0. We can determine the range for an "equal" match/outcome - 1.85-2.25. If the odds do not fall into this range, then we can talk about a clear favorite and an outsider.
If odds of 1.9 and 2.5 are offered for the same outcome in different bookmakers, then with a high degree of probability an error has crept in somewhere. Now such differences in quotes occur extremely rarely, and if they do, they last only a few minutes. Individual offices can get information that affects quotes faster. Such gaps are a typical example of an error in the BC line.
Other bookmaker mistakes
Not all errors can be "obvious". Sometimes the bookmaker can adjust the odds in such a way that they will not differ too much from the market offer. And the players just won't be able to identify it.
But there are also a number of classic mistakes that are often found in bookmakers. And if honest bookmakers simply make returns at such rates, then especially “impudent” ones can take the players’ money for themselves. If these players made a losing bet. For example:
Teams/players swapped, or the outcomes were mixed up in places. This is especially dangerous when similar odds are offered. The player may not understand that a mistake was made in the BC line. The "arrogant" bookmakers will refund those whose wrong bet has passed, but will pocket the money of the players whose "mistaken" bet was a loser. And bettors can't prove anything.
Mistakes in the names of teams and players. “You bet on the Liverpool team against Manchester United. Sorry, but there are no such commands, a typo was made in setting the line, "- some bookmakers may make mistakes and typos in translations. Normal bookmakers will simply correct the team names and calculate all bets. "Scammers" will tell you that you bet on a non-existent team or player.
In some offices, there may also be problems with updating the line. Never bet on matches that have already ended. A bet on the post-match can be fraught with lower maximums and even blocking the account.
Initial coefficients are formed on the basis of statistical data. After some time odds are modeled by analyzing the bookmakers' cash load on the odds. Let's say that the bookmaker, based on statistical indicators, set the odds for the victory of basketball teams in the following form: the victory of team No. 1 -2.2, the victory of team No. 2 -1.7. After some time, more bets were made on team No. 1 than on the victory of team No. 2, which means that the odds for the victory of team No. 1 were initially overstated and team No. 2 should be the leader in this match. Mistakes are available at all bookmakers and even on the Betfair betting exchange. The initial odds on Betfair are also set by the players based on the analysis of the line in bookmakers, so there are mistakes here as well. On Betfair, also under betting pressure coefficient will change in the corresponding direction. On the betting exchange, this is extremely transparent, because thanks to the unique interface of the betting exchange, you can monitor the amount of bets on the odds and the number of bets in total, bet on a particular outcome.
By analyzing the odds on the Betfair betting exchange, you can see on the graphs the volume of bets placed on a bet on a specific selection (circled in green), as well as the volume of bets placed on each coefficient, in the table on the right. Thanks, you can also do analysis volumes of bets on past events.
Thus, after the appearance of the initial coefficients, you can spend ratio analysis and make a decision - do you agree with the value of these coefficients or do you think that the coefficient is in error. Of course, it is not so easy to immediately master the experience of evaluating and monitoring coefficients, for this it is necessary to spend sufficient time studying the formation of coefficients and analyzing their movement.
Service Mellbet gives you the opportunity to conduct training in a very short time. If you learn how to find errors in the line of bookmakers and the Betfair betting exchange, then tremendous opportunities will open up in front of you. After all, judge for yourself, if you find an error in the line, for example, the coefficient will be initially overestimated, and you bet on it, then after a while the players or bookmakers will definitely equalize the balance of power according to the volume of bets on these coefficients. Since you made a bet at a favorable odd, you can always sell it on the Betfair betting exchange and earn even before the start of the game on the difference in values. You can find more details on how to buy and sell odds on the Betfair betting exchange in the "About Betfair" section or place a bet on the opposite outcome at another bookmaker (in other words, bet
) I briefly tried to describe how I started my journey in the world of betting. Once again, I would like to emphasize that we do not have hidden goals to sell something or to “get hooked” on something, our main goal is to find people who live by football, live by betting, trading, etc.
Why are we looking for such people? In order to work together, distribute the load of information search and selection of matches (markets) for betting and trading on the Betfair betting exchange.
In this article, I would like to describe the next stage of my development and actually smoothly approach the basics of the foundations of the mathematics of the betting business.
So, after the era of bonuses, I went through the era of trying out various strategies, systems and their automation. In the process of work, an excellent team of like-minded people gathered, with whom I developed. I got into the test group of one of the best arb services in 2010-2013.
What is a fork, perhaps, it makes no sense to describe in detail. Fork (arbitrage situation) is an error in the line of one or more bookmakers. For example: "Spartak" - "Lokomotiv", in BC "Leon" the total is over 2.5 for 2.07, and for the total under 2.5 in BC "Zenith" for 2.07. If we bet 100 dollars in one and the other office on different outcomes of the bet, then in any case we will win 7 dollars.
Actually, I got acquainted with surebets from my very first wagered bonus 10 years ago. Each bet when clearing the bonus at the bookmaker was aimed at a surebet or a zero win, to scroll (wager) the bets (to fulfill the conditions of the bookmaker, for example, you need to make a deposit 5 times), and for this it was necessary to bet in the bookmaker and cover the bet in another Bookmaker or make a reverse bet on the Betfair betting exchange, which I actually met through working with bonuses.
It was convenient to launder bonuses on the stock exchange. For example, in Betwin I bet on the victory of Nantes, and on the stock exchange I bet AGAINST the victory of Nantes at the same odds or even more profitable. I had a pro-account on the bet72 service and it was very convenient to catch surebets between the exchange and the booths. Of course, with experience, I tried to use several offices at once, in which I received bonuses, for the simultaneous laundering of several bonuses in different offices in one match :). At first, surebets gave a good profit, but gradually it became more and more difficult.
The complexity of the work was that the bookmakers began to cut the maximum bets after 2-3 bets or block accounts for dreary identity checks. Therefore, in order to continue making money on surebets, it was necessary to constantly look for new “friends” on which to register accounts and constantly change the software and hardware of computers so as not to burn in the booths.
I will not say that surebets have ceased to be profitable, but for me this topic has died at the moment, since the money and time spent do not pay off my opportunities :).
Of course, any kid who starts looking for money on the Internet stumbles first on “miracle systems”, and then on an easy way to beat the bookmaker - betting on surebets. I will not dissuade you from playing surebets, I will just give you tips so that you do not lose money:
Before making a deposit in a fork booth, be sure to read the reviews about this office, what pitfalls it has. I have always used the SBR (sportsbookreview) site. This is an ancient foreign resource that very clearly reflects the safety of your money. The rating of the office is A +, which means that in any case you will receive money from the bookmaker. By the way, with the help of this resource, I won a lot of money in bookmakers who wanted to take money)).
This resource is the most popular abroad, and it influenced the offices, had access to them, and a decrease in the rating of the office on their website would mean the loss of a huge number of players for the booth. Now there are domestic bookmaker ratings, for our offices you can read reviews on these sites. In addition to the SBR rating, I also connected various associations or regulatory bodies. Almost every bookmaker has a regulatory body in the jurisdiction of which it operates, on the website of the office (usually in the footer) there are links to the license and to the regulatory authorities.
Through the bookmaker's regulatory authorities, money was repeatedly knocked out of the booth :).
A few tips from experience:
1) Before making a deposit, always check if there are such authorities in this bookmaker.
2) Do not bet more than 5-7% on the surebet, as it is possible to return such bets in one office, and in another bet will be counted, and you may lose the amount of the bet.
3) When registering, always indicate reliable user data, that is, you must have all the necessary documents for future identity checks (passport, and even better passport, driving license, utility bills, credit cards).
4) Ideally, you need to play smart with the bookmaker, it is best to make 1-2 bets on non-forks and close them in another office, even with small losses, but before withdrawing funds, ask yourself to go through an identity check or order a withdrawal of funds so that the bookmaker I wrote to you a request to send docks for identity verification. As a rule, all bookmakers check the client before the first withdrawal of funds. Therefore, such a trick speeds up identity verification and the level of trust in your account at the bookmaker increases slightly, which will give you more time to work in this booth already for surebets.
5) I recommend taking screenshots of bets in the statistics of your account, so that in case of cancellation of bets, you can operate with something in front of the bookmaker. Ideally, this should be done before the start of the match, since the bookmaker can cancel the bet, but in your other office the bet will be considered, and it may lose.
In this article, I would not like to focus on the technical aspects of the surebets game, but to reveal more interesting moments that opened my eyes and gave me further development.
I sat tight on surebets for more than a year and during this time I played a lot of accounts in different booths, I could count on at least 30 people for each fork office.
In the process of betting on surebets, I began to notice that banks are overflowing from a normal office into a “shit office”, many people call this a bad luck :), but it is this bad luck that opens our eyes to the bookmaker’s mathematics.
What is a "shit office" - this is a book office that gives an error in the line, and in a normal office you bet on the second shoulder, blocking the bet in the shit office.
If you systematically arb Pinnacle with BC Zenit, then your entire bank will be lost in BC Pinnacle, and in BC Zenit, on the contrary, the bank will be increased. Why is this happening? Yes, it’s very simple, you bet on bookmaker’s mistakes in Zenith bookmaker, but there are no such errors in Pinnacle, there is just a very low margin and therefore this office falls into the arb service as the second or third office for placing a surebet.
And now we turn on the logic and ask ourselves the question: what if I just bet on the bookmaker's mistakes, without overlapping them in other offices, will I also be in the black? The answer is yes, you will be in the black by the size of the average error rate. If the average percentage of error (in other words, it is considered an overestimation of the coefficient) will be 5%, then your profit will be calculated as follows: for example, you made bets with a turnover of $100,000 (1000 bets of $100), then your profit is 5 % of turnover will be $5,000. To feel this profit, you need a good distance, that is, you need to bet a lot.
It was the experience with surebets that opened my eyes, I understood how the bookmaker is wrong and why he is against me betting on his mistakes in the line. We started moving away from surebets and betting on high odds without overlapping them in other offices, a new era has begun - the era of value betting, but that's another story, which I will try to reveal in more detail in the next article.
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