You ran recon.
You found nothing juicy.
No XSS. No IDOR. No auth bypass.
You sighed… closed Burp….. and moved on.
And meanwhile broken links were just sitting there like:
> “Bro… I’m literally free real estate.”
Welcome to Broken Link Hijacking the bug class that looks boring, sounds boring, but quietly leads to P1/P2 payouts when you know what to do.
First Things First What Are We Even Hijacking?
Let’s keep this human.
A company:
Links to another website
That website dies
Nobody notices
The link stays….. forever
Now imagine:
That link is used in login pages
Or email templates
Or JavaScript includes
Or OAuth redirects
If you can control what that dead link points to now, you control trust.
That’s the whole game.
Step 1: Finding Broken Links (The Lazy but Smart Way)
You could manually click links like it’s 2011.
Or… you can let Broken Link Checker (BLC) do the dirty work.
Basic usage (no overthinking)
blc http://yoursite.com -ro
Or if you already have a file:
blc path/to/index.html -ro
Scanning a real target?
blc http://exp.com -ro --filter-level
That’s it. No fancy flags. No 200 IQ required.
PLEASE Save the Output (Future You Will Thank You)
If you don’t save output, did you even recon?
Plain text output
blc https://target.com -r --robot=false --filter-level=3 --verbose > blc_output.txt
Terminal + file (this is the sweet spot)
blc https://target.com -r --robot=false --filter-level=3 --verbose | tee blc_output.txt
You
See progress
Keep proof
Look professional in reports
Timestamped output (bug bounty hygiene)
blc https://target.com -r --robot=false --filter-level=3 --verbose | tee blc_$(date +%F_%H-%M).txt
Example:
blc_2026-01-04_20-18.txt
Now your recon folder doesn’t look like a crime scene.
“But This Output Is Huge” Filter Like an Attacker
You don’t care about working links.
You care about dead things.
grep -E "BROKEN|404|403|500" blc_output.txt
What each one actually means:
- 404 → Domain might be expired
- BROKEN → Jackpot
- 403 → Misconfig or abandoned ACL
- 500 → Backend dependency rot
Step 2: Okay… Now What? (This Is Where People Quit)
Most people stop here.
You won’t.
For every broken external link, ask:
- Is this domain expired?
- Is it used in:
- JS includes?
- OAuth redirect?
- Password reset?
- Email flow?
If yes you’re cooking.
SPF Abuse: The Sneaky Upgrade
Here’s where it gets spicy.
Some companies still trust dead domains in their SPF records.
Use this:
👉 https://www.kitterman.com/spf/validate.html
If you see a broken domain included in SPF:
Email spoofing becomes possible
Phishing becomes believable
Brand abuse becomes trivial
And yes…………………… companies pay for this.
Real Impact (Not Hypothetical, Not OWASP)
Broken Link Hijacking has led to:
OAuth redirect takeovers
JavaScript supply chain injection
Password reset phishing
Session theft
Mass brand impersonation
All because someone forgot to clean up a link.
Final Thoughts (Real Talk)
Broken Link Hijacking isn’t sexy.
It won’t trend on Twitter.
It won’t give you cool screenshots for LinkedIn.
But…… it works.
If you:
automate BLC
keep an eye on dead domains
and actually connect the dots with SPF, OAuth, and JS
you’ll start finding bugs that most people don’t even notice let alone test.
And one random day, after hours of boring recon, you’ll sit back and think:
“Wow…… this stupid little broken link just paid my rent.”
That moment hits different.
If This Helped You
If this post saved you time, brainpower, or frustration
feel free to buy me a coffee ☕
Not because you have to.
Just because late-night recon runs better on caffeine.
👉 (https://buymeacoffee.com/purushotham)
A Quick Word About Bloomeor
Bloomeor
All of this comes from the work we do at Bloomeor our small security startup where we focus on real attacks, not theory.
We spend our time breaking things the way attackers actually would, finding issues that scanners miss and checklists ignore.
No fluff.
No compliance drama.
Just honest security work.
If you’re building something and want it tested properly, we’re around.
Alright, that’s it.
Happy hunting 🐞bommm💥
If this post helped, drop a clap and yeah….. maybe go re-check those recon folders one more time 😉
