Growing up in San Martín de los Andes, a small town in Argentine Patagonia known for its stunning landscapes and winter sports, Bronxi’s path into cybersecurity began with a simple gift that would change his life forever. “My uncle Alfredo, my dad’s youngest brother, gave me a family game console for my 6th birthday. I had no idea something like that even existed, and thanks to him, I discovered that world and many others,” he recalls.
This early exposure to gaming sparked a curiosity that would evolve into something much deeper. “After discovering video games, I became interested in everything related to computers. I was fascinated by the idea that you could do things the creator didn’t originally intend. That questions of ‘What could I do with this?’ or ‘What if?’ really drove me,” Bronxi explains.
Like many hackers, Bronxi’s journey wasn’t always straightforward. “In my teenage years, that curiosity led me to do some lamer-type stuff I’m not particularly proud of, but it’s part of my story. That’s when I realized I had a passion for pushing boundaries,” he acknowledges.
Movies played a significant role in shaping his aspirations. “As a kid, I was fascinated by the movie Hackers, and when I saw The Matrix, I couldn’t believe a film like that existed. As an adult, I watched Mr. Robot, and Elliot became my anti-hero hero,” he says.
The turning point came in 2019 at Ekoparty, Latin America’s largest cybersecurity conference. “The experience of going to Ekoparty pushed me to focus more on hacking and introduced me to people who are now my friends and have helped me grow immensely,” Bronxi reflects. “This changed my profession, the way I see the world, and how I collaborate with others.”
Bronxi entered the bug bounty world in 2022, initially intimidated by what he perceived as an elite community. “I used to think that the people involved were hackers with such an advanced level of technical knowledge that they basically spoke in binary,” he admits. However, he quickly found his footing, specializing in web vulnerabilities.
“I specialize in web vulnerabilities, particularly in broken access control (BAC), web cache issues, CSRF, and business logic flaws. But I’m very curious by nature, and I’m always reading or doing labs on other types of vulnerabilities that catch my interest,” he explains.
His approach to bug hunting emphasizes patience and focus. “Once I realized that focusing on a single program, hunting manually, and spending time on it yielded good results, I had already been hunting exclusively on Bugcrowd for over a year,” he notes. His first valid vulnerability was discovered on the Bugcrowd platform.
Currently working as a Red Team Analyst, Bronxi describes the role as uniquely challenging and collaborative. “I work closely with a small team of other analysts. I’m lucky to be surrounded by highly experienced professionals I learn a lot from,” he says.
The work involves multiple dimensions: “We design and execute realistic attack scenarios (phishing, lateral movement, web exploitation, among many other tasks). We identify both technical and human weaknesses (like misconfigurations or a lack of security awareness in development teams). We collaborate with the blue team to strengthen defenses through exercises and adversarial simulations, including reviewing their monitoring capabilities.”
What sets red teaming apart from traditional penetration testing is its continuous nature. “It’s not the same as traditional pen testing, where you perform specific tests, write a report, and move on. In red teaming, the work is continuous, and you have to think not just like a security analyst looking for technical flaws but like an adversary, identifying potential attack paths and putting that into action,” Bronxi explains.
The intensity of the role keeps him on his toes. “Some days or weeks can be pretty intense, especially when a red teaming exercise is underway, or when unexpected incidents arise. You always have to be ready for the unexpected,” he observes.
Despite working with cutting-edge threats, Bronxi emphasizes that fundamental vulnerabilities remain critically important. “Lately, I’ve realized—especially when talking to people outside the cybersecurity world—that we’re so immersed in these topics that we take basic things for granted, things that really affect people’s daily lives. In that sense, classic account takeovers via phishing are still a big deal,” he argues.
He advocates for hunters to maintain focus on both classic and emerging threats: “For bug bounty hunters, nothing new—always pay attention to the usual vulnerabilities, but also study lesser-known ones like web cache issues, prototype pollution, and 2FA-related business logic flaws.”
Regarding AI’s impact on cybersecurity, Bronxi sees both opportunity and challenge: “We have two main paths ahead of us with AI: First, using it as an assistant to help us find and report vulnerabilities. Second, exploiting the new vulnerabilities introduced by this technology—whether in LLM chat interfaces or in the code they generate, which, by the way, often contains major security flaws.”
Bronxi’s approach to vulnerability discovery emphasizes simplicity and fundamentals. “I’ve found—or at least detected—a lot of vulnerabilities just by using browser dev tools. Things like web cache deception or potential CSRF issues can be found just by looking at the cookie table or analyzing request and response headers. My other must-have tool is a good proxy,” he reveals.
He also credits his professional development to his excellent communication skills. “In my experience, you become a better professional when you’re able to communicate the importance of certain findings. It’s important to be able to build an executive-level narrative that’s understandable in terms of severity and business impact, and specifying how an issue can be remediated is key,” he believes.
Furthermore, he goes beyond traditional consultant relationships by differentiating himself from the typical technical profile. He doesn’t just send a report, collect payment, and return a year later to find the same unpatched issues. “Whenever possible, I work alongside professionals—and sometimes even directly with developers—to help them fix the vulnerabilities,” he shares.
Bronxi’s advice to newcomers centers on managing expectations and ego. “You’ll never know everything. That’s true in any field, but in tech—and especially hacking—it becomes even more evident. There will always be more that you don’t know compared to what you do know,” he counsels.
He uses a powerful metaphor to describe the patience required in the learning process: “To be a hacker is to be curious and to always keep learning. Someone who learns constantly knows that their knowledge is like an island in the middle of an ocean. They’re not trying to know the entire ocean—just to make their island grow a little more each day.”
His final piece of wisdom is both practical and philosophical: “Live with the satisfaction of learning something new every day, and with the awareness that you’ll never know it all.”
As Bronxi continues building the cybersecurity community in Patagonia through initiatives like Hack El Valle, his journey from a kid with a gaming console to a respected red team analyst demonstrates that passion, persistence, and humility remain foundational in hacking success. “Share what you know—it will help others, and it will help you a lot too,” he closes.