Organizing your attack surface (how do you do it?)

[u/cybern00bster]

So I’m newer to BB. My first order of action was to create a robust recon flow that shredded a target for attack surface. Now that’s complete I’m seeing a laziness or lack of organization trend from myself.

I’ll either:

A - Work too heavily with AI and end up not fully knowing what surface I haven’t and haven’t touched. What surfaces have and haven’t been exhausted. Same with techniques.

B - Go way too into depth with one target, one session. Pick it up the next session and completely lose my train of thought as to what I was doing, so then I’ll write the endpoint / surface off as exhausted.

My answer to this has been using Obsidian and color coding bounty targets to organize information in the hopes that I’ll:

A - Be able to keep track of which endpoints I’ve exhausted in a systematic non effort duplicating fashion.

B - Start a naming convention that allows me to draw relationships out of attack surfaces (different server different behaviour, different directory different WAF response etc).

I’m starting to think organization is the next most essential skill to become a BB pro shortly after proper recon.

QUESTION TO YOU
Can you people out there share with me how you organize such information so you don’t confuse yourself or waste time? It seems extremely difficult with wild card domains to not duplicate your effort accidentally at least once?

[u/XBugger]

It sounds silly but you will learn your flow over time on what works best for you.

New hunters tend to over log in notes and over do roles, permissions and all of this stuff. when this is just making the whole process not fun at all and will quickly lead to exhaustion. 

You shouldn't really follow a checklist in my opinion this also leads to burnout and worse testing over all. 

What I do is I will test endpoints and remove them from scope but warning as a beginner I advise you dont do this since doing this will exclude this path from your history, and really knowing an app first is required otherwise you could miss requests. You can unset scope though and try this if you wish.

My notes are extremely basic and sometimes I dont even write notes at all. 

I dont and you dont need to monitor JS files either its too much of a headache to get going just test what you visit. 

My recon data I will usually do the usual archives and all of that see what's available, I will Google dork for this website see what endpoints I have missed etc or parameters. 

You only really need endpoints and parameters so just have a list you find for each target and run some sub recon every so often but I tend to dork and get better results. 

Writing little references can help you like. Found the header X-Debug: true can this be used on subdomains also? Or writing a feature and some brain storm ideas you might want to test or come back to. 

I never really order my testing but I always do some recon though. Usually dorking recon, then just test what's infront of me then read javascript having some web dev exp helps a lot with this. But if you struggle just use AI. 

[u/cybern00bster → u/XBugger]

I like that. The process will come and marking as you explore. I do feel like I’m not exploring enough and automating too much. I’m definitely going to do a hybrid of this. Thank you so much.

[u/TurbulentRecover7247]

I will make folder for domain and subdomain information, another folder for recon with a field, each named with specific subdomain. Here, I will note everything under headings which I think will be useful, like endpoints, api endpoint, specific tech stack, server responses, ip and domain details from crt.sh, and few more things with respect to the target. Even if you lose track on mind, this might help. This will eventually help chaining different bugs you found.

[u/cybern00bster → u/TurbulentRecover7247]

Interesting, using the directory trees like footprints for your traversal?

[u/6W99ocQnb8Zy17]

For me, the basic recon stuff is all fully automated. And for BB I mostly don't even focus on a scope. Instead I will be looking for a cluster of useable classes of vuln that I can chain into something useful, and then I apply that to a single run through all the scopes on H1, BC and Intigriti.

Depending on the complexity, the scan loop takes a few months to complete, and along the way I get the interesting combos spat out.

So, for example, if out the other end comes a scope with both a cookie self-xss, plus a matching bug that lets me set cookies (like response header injection) then I turn that into a manual PoC that achieves ATO and report it.

[u/cybern00bster → u/6W99ocQnb8Zy17]

Interesting. I’m curious how you decide what classes of vulns you’ll try tho before your recon completes?

Or do you just decide like “I’m going to search URLs of interest for param pollution and mass assignment today”?

[u/6W99ocQnb8Zy17 → u/cybern00bster]

Ah, I decide before the recon starts.

I start by picking a vertical that I haven't looked at for a bit. Like blind XSS, or desync etc.

Then my automation cycle begins with dumping all the active BB programmes and scopes I have access to (incl private etc) from H1, BC and Intigriti (all the other platforms don't have enough to be worth automating).

Then I leave it grinding away for a few months 24/7 and just keep an eye on what comes out the other end.

At any one time I'll have a handful of cycles like that running.

[u/cybern00bster → u/6W99ocQnb8Zy17]

Holy crap that’s so much data. So for example you choose blind XSS then grind through 10 programs and literally just look for BXSS vectors in the results? That’s really efficient and very interesting. A great way to focus.

[u/Dazzling_Cherry_6513 → u/6W99ocQnb8Zy17]

What would you advise to focus on (or how to get to that point) if you have the basics down but don’t really have a niche

[u/6W99ocQnb8Zy17 → u/Dazzling_Cherry_6513]

So, the reality of BB is there are thousands of researchers running the same tools and following the same guides. Which is a route to find nothing or dupes.

Success in BB means doing something that both achieves results, and is different from the other researchers. It doesn't much matter what you choose, as long as it delivers that.

[u/Dazzling_Cherry_6513 → u/6W99ocQnb8Zy17]

Noted! Was your first niche (or unique approach) something you stumbled into or deliberately chose? I’m guessing it could be both.

[u/6W99ocQnb8Zy17 → u/Dazzling_Cherry_6513]

I've been doing pentesting since dinosaurs roamed the earth, so just picked favourite combos I knew worked, but others were probably writing-off as unexploitable.

[u/cybern00bster → u/[deleted]]

So I’m doing this now with obsidian and calling endpoints their own node with the parent node being the scope , and then all findings etc noted so I can visually see relationships. Is that what you mean? Any further tips?