Bug Bounty Race: Exploiting Race Conditions for Infinite Discounts
1 min read
Summary
A race condition is a security vulnerability that can be exploited by attackers to carry out unauthorized actions or bypass authorization checks.
These vulnerabilities typically occur when two or more operations are executed concurrently, and the order in which they are executed affects the outcome.
In this article, the author provides a hands-on example of exploiting a race condition to purchase a jacket from an e-commerce platform for less than its intended price.
They use Burp Suite, a penetration testing tool, to intercept and duplicate requests to apply multiple coupon codes simultaneously, bypassing the intended discount logic.
This article serves as an example of how lack of concurrency control and improper synchronization can lead to severe business logic vulnerabilities, impacting payment systems, inventory management, and authentication mechanisms.
Developers should use database-level locking, implement idempotency checks, and add unique one-time tokens to prevent such vulnerabilities.
For pentesters and bug hunters, race conditions are a goldmine for unauthorized access and privilege escalation because they can bypass authorization and verification mechanisms, causing data corruption, leakage, and even financial losses.