I know the MERN stack and have already built a few Solidity-based projects like crowdfunding and lottery apps. I now want to become a smart contract auditor and eventually earn money through bug bounties. What should I study next and focus on to become a skilled auditor capable of finding real vulnerabilities and making money from bounties ?
Member • 16h
Start breaking smart contracts instead of just building them. That’s the real shift you need to make to become a smart contract auditor and earn from bug bounties.
Focus areas to master next:
Study Common Vulnerabilities Learn how contracts get exploited. Use resources like the SWC Registry, Damn Vulnerable DeFi, and Ethernaut. Focus on reentrancy, arithmetic overflows, frontrunning, access control flaws, and flash loan exploits.
Understand Solidity and the EVM Internals Go deeper than writing functions. Learn how storage works, how delegatecall can be dangerous, how fallback functions are misused, and how gas can manipulate execution flow. Knowing how the EVM handles instructions will help you catch edge-case bugs.
Practice Code Reading Auditors read more code than they write. Study contracts from protocols like Uniswap, Aave, and Compound. Try to find logic flaws or missed validations. Cross-check your findings with their public audits.
Use Smart Contract Auditing Tools Get hands-on with Slither (static analysis), Mythril (symbolic execution), Foundry (testing), and Echidna (fuzzing). Learn how to write custom detectors and invariant tests. Real auditors rely heavily on these tools to scale bug hunting.
Read Real Audit Reports Review audits from Trail of Bits, OpenZeppelin, and Certora. Understand how they classify issues (low, medium, high), how they explain risks, and how they suggest remediations. It sharpens your own reporting skills.
Build a Public Track Record Start a GitHub repo or blog. Share your findings, breakdowns of famous exploits, or audits of small open-source projects. Visibility helps when applying to bug bounty contests or audit firms.
Join Bug Bounty Platforms Sign up on Immunefi, Code4rena, and Sherlock. Participate actively—even small findings help you build experience. Analyze past contest submissions to improve your approach.
