WE'RE IN!

Becoming a Level 5 Researcher in Just 3 months with Austin, Synack Red Team

Episode Summary

In this episode of WE'RE IN, Josh Mason sits down with SRT member Austin, a rising star on the Synack Red Team. Austin shares his hacker origin story and pulls back the curtain on what it takes to break into elite researcher programs. He also deep-dives into his recent "heavy hitter" win: using a JSON Web Token inspection to completely demolish the authorization schema of a U.S. financial services platform, gaining full administrative control.

Episode Notes

In this episode of WE'RE IN, Josh Mason sits down with SRT member Austin, a rising star on the Synack Red Team. Austin shares his hacker origin story and pulls back the curtain on what it takes to break into elite researcher programs. He also deep-dives into his recent "heavy hitter" win: using a JSON Web Token inspection to completely demolish the authorization schema of a U.S. financial services platform, gaining full administrative control.

 

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 - Introduction

00:39 - A Day in the Life of an SRT Hacker

02:08 - Fast Track to Synack Red Team Level 5

03:12 - Hacker Origin Story

04:40 - Mentorship in Synack Red Team

05:46 - HackerOne vs. Synack: Why Synack is Better for Researchers

07:02 - How Patch Verifications Actually Work

09:16 - Compromising a Financial Platform via JWT

11:10 - Advice to Join the Synack Red Team: Get your OSCP

12:32 - Advice to Cyber Newbies: Always Keep Learning

14:14 - Hunting Authorization and Injection Issues for Synack