Are you ready to get the inside scoop from the pros? Get ready to unlock some game-changing knowledge from the event that had everyone buzzing!
The 2022 Team Hunt was an epic hunt for the gold medal spot! Not only did we see great assists and scores that were unstoppable across all 30 teams, we witnessed some spectacular collaboration. Every team was ‘kicking and running all while looking stunning’, but only one team could claim the glorious 1st place prize of $10,000 cash! Along with the moolah, the winning team received challenge coins, a team poster, 1st place medals, and shiny jerseys!
Let’s learn more about our brave winners – none other than the crew that likes to go by the name ‘Tess’s Squad’! Tess is a 2022 MVP and loves space, including all things astronomy. Anhnt1337 is a part-time hunter and 2022 MVP focusing on server side bugs and sensitive data leaks with 201 P1’s. HackerX007 is a P1 hunter, 2022 MVP, and P1 Level 7 Warrior with 173 P1’s, but he always makes time for family as he believes they are the key to his success. OrwaGodfather is a P1 Level 7 Warrior and LevelUpX 2022 Champion who loves to hunt for information disclosure and server side P1 bugs. Last, but certainly not least, Todayisnew, a true collaborator with over 35 years of experience automating code, Bugcrowd Bug Bash winner with a goal to hack a happier life and leave the internet more secure.
First things first, you did it! How does it feel winning first place after all your hard work?
Todayisnew – “Great to see the hard work of all my team mates be highlighted.”
Anhnt1337 – “I feel very happy and proud to be part of the team. The team’s efforts have paid off.”
Tess – “It feels amazing, when you prove you did best from the rest.”
‘The best from the rest’ – we’re saving that one!
Looking back, what made you want to put a team together and participate?
Anhnt1337 – “One morning when I woke up, I received a message from Tess that he wanted to invite me to join the team for the Hacker Cup event. Everyone on the team is someone I greatly admire and love for their achievements and contributions to the bug bounty community. I think Tess chose me in part because he saw that in me.”
Tess – “I learn a lot from @OrwaGodfather & @Todayisnew personally so I always wanted to put these two in a team with me and work together on something. Due to the Team Hunt event it was possible to do something like this. @Hackerx007 and @Anhnt1337 were Orwa’s good friends and now because of this event we have developed a good friendship as well.”
Before there was Tess’s Squad, you were just a talented group of hackers. Where did the name Tess’s Squad come from?
Tess – “It was spontaneous that I named it Squad, so I was like what Squad? Since I assembled everyone I named it TESS’s Squad haha.”
OrwaGodfather – “Tess asked me if it’s ok to drop this name as the team name. I said ok, in the end I’m the team captain 😎”
We’re curious about how you all got started. What inspired you to become a hacker?
HackerX007 – “I have had a passion in computers, programs, and hacking stuff since I was 14 years old. It just kept growing over the years.”
Todayisnew – “Interest to learn and explore, and necessity to support my family financially. :)”
OrwaGodfather – “To tell myself and tell the world that nothing is impossible, and you can do something, you are protecting thousands of users indirectly.”
Anhnt1337 – “It came out of curiosity and wanting to break things.”
We see a common theme here – passion, curiosity, and protecting users across the globe!
Despite the abundance of talent each player brings individually, what is the best part about working on a team?
Todayisnew – “Celebrating the successes, and supporting each other during the challenges. :)”
Anhnt1337 – “Learning, sharing and collaborating when finding something interesting. Giving tactics to compete with other teams, and finally celebrating.” –
Tess – “Creativity and able to learn from each others work is the best thing about working in a team.”
OrwaGodfather – “Everything is great. Starting with the team, we all agree on a specific program who does the recon, another one who tests, and another one who reports. The most important thing is that I did a great job in this event and this is important to earn the respect of this great team.”
Uh-oh! Looks like you used up all of your subs. What obstacles did you have to overcome?
Todayisnew – “All our p5 bugs were not rewarded and triaged as p1’s 😉 We overcame with sending in more reports :)”
Anhnt1337 – “The problem is that everyone has a different time zone. My time zone is the opposite of everyone else’s. So it’s quite difficult to discuss and hunt bugs together. We often had to stay up late.”
OrwaGodfather – “That everyone has a different time zone, so we couldn’t hunt in the same time together. We started leave notes for who was not hunting.”
What did your day typically look like during this event?
Todayisnew – “Check in and wish each other well, share and collaborate and possible bugs.”
Tess – “Mostly P1 severity issues since that’s where the most points were at.”
Hackerx007 – “I woke up and I found that my team during (my night) was working and I found their notes, targets or things that need fuzzing. I started working on these things until I found something that needed recon and leave it as a note for another team member and so on.”
With different timezones and busy schedules, how did you take care of yourselves during this event?
Anhnt1337 – “The duration of the event was quite long so I did not have any health problems. Outside of hacking, I work for the company and spend most of my time with my family.”
Tess – “When I am not hacking, I usually go workout and come back with a fresh brain of new ideas.”
OrwaGodfather – “Just by saying, ‘no matter how many points we have, it’s not enough.”
Determination, taking breaks, and some good ole’ movement? Recipe for success.
Even though you were all hacking from different areas of the world, you still had to hack together. How did you all coordinate efforts?
Todayisnew – “Discord for the win :)”
Anhnt1337 – “Eric and Tess have strengths in automatic scanning and scale attack with their recon data. Owra and Hackerx007 are an awesome duo with strengths in recon and fuzzing hidden assets. I focus on server-side issues and 3rd party bugs. We combine each other’s strengths to effectively hunt the most bugs.”
Hackerx007 – “Each one of us is good at something, so we collaborated to make the team win.”
We saw a lot of submissions, many being excellent. What was your most impactful bug?
Hackerx007 – “It was a direct RCE”
Tess – “Lots of RCE haha”
Anhnt1337 – “It always is Remote Code Execution and Sensitive data leakage”
Todayisnew – “Friendship”
Winning takes strategy (and lots of pizza). What was Tess’s Squad’s secret strategy going into a collaboration challenge?
Todayisnew- “Work together, do our best, can’t control the outcome and take care of mental, physical health and each other :)”
Anhnt1337 – “We focus on bugs that can be automated and mass scanning, look for programs in a wide range of scopes, and hunt together.”
Tess – “Just look for high severity issues and get as much as recon we can gather.”
Orwagodfather – “Whatever I find, I add everyone in equal points because in the end I collect friends, not money.”
The event is over, swag is heading your way and you have extra cash. But, if you could change anything about the way your team did things, would you?
Anhnt1337 – “I think it’s online communication. It’s always hard to work in different places, different time zones, and hard to share.”
Todayisnew – “Maybe a video call earlier to have real-time planning and Communication earlier 🙂 “
Communication is key. 🔑
You might be asked to sign some autographs now that you’re at the top. Do you have any tips for those that want to start collaborating?
Tess – “Building trust is very Important to collaborate with anyone. The people I work with are the ones I trust them and I never have second thoughts about anything which makes it very easy for me to work with them.”
OrwaGodfather – “When you collab and hunt try to share everything and try not to hide anything”
Todayisnew – “Build trust with some initial smaller collaborations, see if it’s a good fit, in any new relationship communication and clarity of expectations is so important :)”
We have a feeling there’s plenty to learn when it comes to team challenges. What did you learn from your team members?
Anhnt1337 – “I learned a lot from my team. From Eric and Tess’s way of hunting think out of the box as well as Orwa and Hackerx007’s never-ending efforts. They are truly amazing people both in terms of hacking skills, spirit and ethics. Well worth studying and admiring.”
Todayisnew – “Empathy for life challenges, and more trust in others after such a positive experience :)”
Besides the biggest pizza party ever, do you have any plans for your winnings?
Todayisnew – “Pizza party 😉 and into savings”
Anhnt1337 – “This is an online competition and we are from different countries. So it’s hard to celebrate together. We congratulate each other on twitter. The prize of the contest is enough for me to eat pizza for days :P”
Hackerx007 – “Focusing on p1s”
Would you like to participate in future hacking events?
Todayisnew – “Always great to connect and learn from others so yes of course :)”
Anhnt1337 – “Sure. Meet and make friends with people in the reputable bug bounty community and many years of experience is always something I look forward to. Build your relationship and they get better and together add value. Tess’Squad was the first team I had success together in a hacking event. Thank you all for giving me the opportunity to do this.”
Tess – “Yes, I would love to :)”
OrwaGodfather – “Yes yes yes for sure yes”
Hackerx007 – “This was my first hacking event. I learned a lot and I won. Now I’m so optimistic about winning other events, so my answer is yes I absolutely would.”
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