17-year-old Bangladeshi receives NASA recognition for ethical hacking

Doha, Qatar: I don t learn to hack, I hack to learn. That s how 17 year old Md Shariar Shanaz Shuvon explains his passion for cybersecurity. I don...

Doha, Qatar: “I don’t learn to hack, I hack to learn.” That’s how 17-year-old Md Shariar Shanaz Shuvon explains his passion for cybersecurity. “I don’t wait for the perfect time or course to start learning. I break things, explore systems, and that’s how I really learn,” Shuvon told The Peninsula in an online interview.

A self-taught ethical hacker from Bangladesh, Shuvon recently made headlines after receiving an official letter of appreciation from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). His achievement? Discovering a serious security flaw in NASA’s system and doing the right thing by reporting it responsibly.

On June 11, 2024, Shuvon uncovered a serious privacy-related vulnerability in NASA's systems by combining two hacking techniques—Insecure Direct Object Reference (IDOR) and Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF). “By chaining these together, I accessed sensitive Earth data that contained personal information. If misused, this could have led to phishing attacks or data leaks.” 

Instead of exploiting the vulnerability, Shuvon reported it through NASA’s official Vulnerability Disclosure Policy, and in February 2025, NASA responded with a formal letter recognising his ethical approach and technical skill.