Scariest Bugs of 2026 - Halloween Special (Ep.198)

BLUF:
The hosts of the Critical Thinking podcast share their most "spooky" and impactful bug bounty findings from the past year, ranging from critical session hijacks and AI sandbox escapes to severe IoT vulnerabilities and disastrous program triage experiences 0:39.

Key Takeaways:
• Joseph discovered a critical Account Takeover (ATO) vulnerability in a hardened cloud provider by exploiting a migration endpoint that accepted random IDs to return admin session cookies, though the payout took two months 4:30.
• JD detailed a complex chain involving a chatbot code sandbox, where he achieved remote code execution and bypassed Content Security Policy (CSP) via a deprecated artifact feature, ultimately leading to an XSS in a null-origin iframe 8:00.
• Ads found a critical flaw in a multi-tenant CRM chatbot where registering an agent with a specific integer ID allowed him to install a malicious agent into any tenant, which then facilitated ATO via cross-site scripting in the agent's document links 17:00.
• JD described the "Shameful Sandbox" bug, where an AI chatbot’s code execution environment contained exposed Redis databases, Slack tokens, and unauthenticated access to the company’s Anthropic API, allowing unauthorized data dumping 23:00.
• Reszo exploited a 3D printing company’s local network setup to associate a service ticket with a victim’s account, later using that ticket to leak the victim's authentication cookies via an HTTP POST request 29:00.
• JD recounted finding a healthcare scheduling API endpoint that, when accessed without parameters, dumped gigabytes of sensitive patient data including SSNs and diagnoses, which was eventually paid out at the critical level 36:00.
• The hosts discussed a government program where an in-scope IP address led to an unauthenticated admin video feed of all cameras in the building, and another instance where a domain takeover was lowballed while the program threatened legal action over an out-of-scope websocket 39:50.
• Justin shared a story of an IoT device war-driving exploit where knocking the device off Wi-Fi forced it into a recovery mode that leaked user PII and account information via Bluetooth 01:04:00.

Closing Statement:
These stories highlight the evolving landscape of bug bounty hunting, emphasizing the importance of deep technical reconnaissance, understanding AI agent behaviors, and the critical role of program triage integrity in securing digital assets.

Sources:

• 0:39 Introduction to the "Spooky Bugs" Halloween episode and guest hosts.
• 4:30 Joseph's story of the session cookie takeover via a migration endpoint.
• 8:00 JD's detailed explanation of the chatbot sandbox RCE and CSP bypass chain.
• 17:00 Ads' discovery of the cross-tenant agent installation and ATO vulnerability.