How hackers earn $800,000 in a weekend – Cybernews documentary

Cybernews has released an exclusive documentary, “World of Bug Bounty,” where we deep dive into the world of bug bounty hunters. Did you know that you could become a millionaire by hunting vulnerabilities in companies’ networks?

Like the Wild West bounty hunter, the bug bounty hunter travels long distances to reap their rewards, which could end up being hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Neiko Rivera had dreams of becoming a professional skateboarder, but he was homeless and struggling to make ends meet.

He knew he had to make money somehow but didn’t know exactly where to start. Skateboarding wasn’t going his way, so he took a megabus up to Michigan and started to learn the art of hacking.

Neiko, aka Specters, began his “hacking career” by breaking into cars. He and Sam Curry were two of the few researchers who discovered a bug in KIA’s website that allowed them to hack into several models.

Cars aren’t the only things Neiko hacked, as he says he’s “hacked into satellites, boats, and a bunch of different targets.”

But Neiko reveals in the latest Cybernews documentary that catching a company’s bugs for the big bucks is perhaps more thrilling than “stealing whips and doing kickflips.”

It’s an experience like no other. Neiko compares bug bounty hunting to a “Wild West-style bounty hunt,” where a price is put on a man's head and he’s wanted dead or alive.

But, unlike the perilous pursuits of Western cowboys and bounty hunters, the landscape is a lot safer. Back in the 90s and early 2000s, you’d risk getting yourself locked up for hunting this kind of bug, but now, you’re rewarded if you do it right.

There are companies that have their own bug bounty programs, like Hacker One. Historically, Facebook was one of the early pioneers of these types of programs.

Bug bounties, as Bryce Case Jr., aka YTCracker, said, "keep all the nerds out of jail and get them a good paycheck.”

The formula generally goes as follows:

One: Find a bug (which is not as easy as it sounds) in a company’s website or system

Two: Approach the company and say they’ve identified the flaw

Three: a hacker is usually compensated by said company.

Although this sounds simple, bug bounty hunters could be trying to hunt for these bugs for hours upon hours and have an incredible skill set that isn’t easy to obtain.

However, the rewards are worth it.

The hackers we spoke to said that they’ve made over $100 million by identifying vulnerabilities for many different organizations.

But the real money is in the bounty events, where hackers can anticipate earning $800,000 in just a few days.

One popular bug bounty company featured in the documentary is Hacker One. In 2023, the platform surpassed $300 million in total all-time rewards and said that the highest overall payouts were from cryptocurrency and blockchain vulnerabilities.

Ethical hackers can make hundreds of thousands of dollars just by breaking into a company’s system and identifying vulnerabilities that need to be patched.

In the documentary, we get to know your favorite hackers, Ben Sadeghipour (NahamSec), STÖK, and many more. We learn how much money can be made from hacking and how hackers spend their earnings in ‘World of Bug Bounty,’ which is premiering now on the Cybernews YouTube channel.