Random Hacking Success — How I Compromised an Admin Panel with Pure Intuition

This wasn’t a bounty program. This wasn’t a targeted red team op. This was one of those unexpected moments where curiosity met persistence — and a bit of stealer intel magic. One of my client sent me a random website asking if I could access its admin panel. The site was a standard LAMP stack setup — Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP. I said yes. Because PHP + parameters = a playground for exploitation.

Initial Recon

The site (let’s call it target.com) was basic — a blogging platform with:

• Blog listings by category
• Signup/Login/Forgot Password
• Authenticated user features: Commenting, username/email edits

I started with the usual SQLi recon — both GET and POST parameter fuzzing. Spent nearly 2 days testing every form, filter, and input box.

Result?

Absolutely nothing exploitable. Not even a blind Boolean response.

File Upload Attempt

I moved on to the file upload endpoint. I managed to upload a PHP shell, but couldn’t locate its path. Turns out:

• Files were stored with randomized names and UNIX timestamps
• Uploaded files were only visible to admin users

No disclosure, no enumeration success… yet.

Fuzzing Hidden Endpoints

Next, I fired up FFUF with aggressive fuzzing:

• Directory wordlist: directory-list-2.3-medium.txt
• File-specific wordlists: php_files_only.txt / asp_files_only.txt from Karanxa

FFUF Output Snippet:

admin         [Status: 301]
upload        [Status: 301]
api           [Status: 301]
vendor        [Status: 301]
assets        [Status: 301]
inc           [Status: 301]

Still… nothing juicy.

I even tried SQLi on the /admin/login form — no luck.

Shift in Mindset: Thinking Like a Dev

I was hitting dead ends everywhere. So I switched hats — from hacker to developer. Here’s what changed the game:

On the signup form, the site had a real-time username availability check via API.

That meant I could enumerate valid usernames using this logic:

If a username already exists → API throws "Username already taken"

I brute-tested typical admin usernames:

admin, administrator, admin123, moderator, staff — all unique.

Nothing worked… until I checked the HTML source code.

Breadcrumb in the Source Code

In the HTML head:

<meta name="author" content="XYZCORPORATIONTECH">

Interesting. A web dev company.

I Googled them. Turns out they’re an agency building sites for multiple clients.

I retried enumeration with these usernames:

• xyzcorporation
• xyzcorp
• xyzcorporate
• xyzcorptech

💥 Bingo. xyzcorp was already registered.

Stealer Intelligence for the Win

Time to get creative. I searched leaked stealer logs using their corporate domain to find commonly used passwords.

Found 19 leaked credentials tied to their devs. Most common password?

→ qwer1234 (used in 6 different sites)

I tried:

Username: xyzcorp
Password: qwer1234

Logged in as admin.

Access to:

• Full user list
• Comment data
• My own previously uploaded PHP shell

Final Outcome

I immediately reported the issue to my client. They patched the vulnerability within hours.

💰 Reward received: $1400 for this intuitive admin takeover.

Lessons & Takeaways

• Enumerating usernames via signup logic is underrated.
• Developers often reuse credentials across client sites.
• HTML meta tags can leak dev/vendor identities
• Stealer logs are a goldmine when you know what to look for.
• Even when all technical vectors fail, human error prevails.