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Hack The Box: Gavel Machine Walkthrough – Medium Difficulity

Completed the Gavel (Medium) machine on Hack The Box. The initial foothold came from an exposed .git directory that leaked the application’s source code and bcrypt password hashes. After cracking the credentials with John the Ripper, I gained access and achieved a reverse shell through command injection in the admin rule field. Reusing the cracked credentials allowed privilege escalation to the application user and retrieval of the user flag.

Root access was obtained by abusing the gavel-util submission feature, which executed YAML rule fields using PHP system(). By overwriting the custom php.ini to remove restrictions and creating a SUID Bash binary, it was possible to spawn a root shell and capture the final flag.

#HackTheBox #HTB #CyberSecurity #EthicalHacking #PenetrationTesting #RedTeam #LinuxSecurity #WebSecurity #PrivilegeEscalation #CTF

Hack The Box: Expressway Machine – Easy Difficulity

Just completed Expressway on Hack The Box (Easy difficulty) – a solid box that blends weak IKE PSK cracking with a straightforward sudo privilege escalation!
Enumeration started with UDP scanning, which revealed ISAKMP on port 500. I ran ike-scan in Aggressive Mode to leak the peer identity ike@expressway.htb and capture crackable parameters. Next I used psk-crack against rockyou.txt and recovered the PSK freakingrockstarontheroad in under 13 seconds. I logged in via SSH as ike using that password and quickly grabbed user.txt.

For privilege escalation, sudo -l confirmed no rights for the ike user. Checking sudo -V showed version 1.9.17 vulnerable to CVE-2025-32463 (chwoot). I cloned the PoC repository on my attack machine, hosted sudo-chwoot.sh with a Python HTTP server, transferred it to the target using curl, made it executable, and ran it. The script printed “woot!” and dropped an instant root shell. From there I read root.txt.
Nice and clean chain: weak PSK for initial access followed by a known sudo vulnerability for root. Perfect easy box to sharpen IKE enumeration and Linux local exploitation skills.

#HackTheBox #CTF #PenetrationTesting #Cybersecurity #EthicalHacking #IKE #PSKCracking #PrivilegeEscalation #LinuxExploitation #CVE202532463 #RedTeam

Hack The Box: Guardian Machine Walkthrough – Hard Difficulty

🔐 User Flag — Compromising the Application Layer

Successfully rooted the Guardian (Hard) machine on Hack The Box by chaining multiple real-world web vulnerabilities.Initial access was achieved through credential abuse and IDOR within the student portal. Leaked chat credentials exposed internal Gitea repositories containing hardcoded database secrets. A vulnerable XLSX file upload feature allowed formula injection → XSS → session hijacking. Leveraging CSRF, I created a rogue admin account and escalated privileges within the application. From there, an LFI vulnerability combined with a PHP filter chain led to Remote Code Execution. After gaining a shell as www-data, I reused leaked credentials to pivot laterally to user jamil, capturing the user flag.

👑 Root Flag — From Code Injection to Full System Compromise

Privilege escalation started with sudo -l, revealing that jamil could execute a Python utility as user mark without a password. Since one of the Python files was writable, I injected code to spawn a shell as mark. Further enumeration uncovered a custom binary (safeapache2ctl) executable as root. A flawed validation mechanism in its Apache config parsing allowed path traversal and arbitrary file inclusion. By crafting a malicious shared object (evil.so) and abusing the wrapper’s improper include validation, I achieved root-level code execution and obtained a root shell.

Hack The Box: GiveBack machine walkthrough – Medium Difficulity

Just completed the Giveback machine on Hack The Box (Medium difficulty).
Started with Nmap → WordPress + vulnerable GiveWP 3.14.0 (CVE-2024-5932 / CVE-2024-8353 PHP Object Injection) → unauthenticated RCE via donation form PoC → reverse shell as bitnami in a Bitnami Kubernetes pod.
Pivoted using mounted K8s service account token → abused the API + exploited a vulnerable legacy PHP-CGI intranet service → broke out to the host as user babywyrm → grabbed user.txt.

For root: passwordless sudo on custom /opt/debug binary → used dumped secret as admin password → crafted malicious OCI config.json → ran privileged container via runc breakout → read root.txt.
Great chain: web vuln → container escape → K8s lateral → sudo abuse.
Loved the real-world Kubernetes misconfig + runc wrapper elements.

#HackTheBox #CTF #PenetrationTesting #KubernetesSecurity #ContainerEscape #RCE #PrivilegeEscalation #Cybersecurity

Hack The Box: Soulmate machine walkthrough – Easy Difficulitty

Just completed the Soulmate machine on Hack The Box — rated Easy, but packed with a satisfying vuln chain!
Started with subdomain enumeration → discovered an exposed CrushFTP admin panel on ftp.soulmate.htb. Exploited an unauthenticated API flaw (CVE-2025-31161 style) in the /WebInterface/function/ endpoint to enumerate users and create a backdoor admin account. From there, abused broken access controls in User Manager to reset the “ben” account password. Logged in as “ben” → gained VFS access to /webProd (the main web root), uploaded a PHP webshell → got RCE as www-data with a reverse shell.
Credential reuse let me su ben and grab user.txt

Root came via a backdoored Erlang SSH daemon on localhost:2222 (hardcoded always-true auth, running as root) → trivial escalation to root Eshell and root.txt

Key takeaways: exposed admin panels are goldmines, weak API auth leads to quick takeovers, credential reuse is still everywhere, and custom services with backdoors can hand you root on a platter.
Loved the progression from web misconfig → file write → RCE → local privesc. Solid learning box!

#HackTheBox #HTB #CyberSecurity #PenetrationTesting #CTF #PrivilegeEscalation #RCE #BugBounty #RedTeam

Hack The Box: Signed Machine Walkthrough – Medium Difficulity

After escalating to a SYSTEM-level PowerShell reverse shell using xp_cmdshell and a base64-encoded payload that called back to my netcat listener on port 9007, I navigated to the user profile and read the user flag directly with type user.txt.

With full sysadmin rights on the SQL instance as SIGNED\Administrator (thanks to a forged silver ticket with Domain Admins membership), I enabled xp_cmdshell, launched a reverse shell to land SYSTEM access, then grabbed the root flag from

Box fully pwned — domain admin and SYSTEM in the bag!

#HackTheBox #HTBSigned #PenetrationTesting #CyberSecurity #PrivilegeEscalation #ActiveDirectory #RedTeam #CTF #EthicalHacking #OffensiveSecurity

Hack The Box: CodePartTwo Machine Walkthrough – Easy Diffculty

Just finished CodePartTwo on Hack The Box — a fun Easy-rated Linux box that taught me a lot!

Initial access came via a js2py sandbox escape in their online JavaScript code editor (CVE-2024-28397 style prototype chain abuse) → reverse shell as ‘app’.
Post-exploitation: found users.db in /app/instance → quick Python HTTP server exfil → local sqlite3 dump → two MD5 hashes. CrackStation instantly revealed marco’s password (sweetangelbabylove).
Lateral move: SSH as marco → user.txt claimed.

Privesc: sudo -l gave NOPASSWD /usr/local/bin/npbackup-cli. After inspecting npbackup.conf (stdin_from_command hint), I used –external-backend-binary to point to my malicious reverse shell script → root shell → root.txt captured.

Loved how it combined modern sandbox escape with classic sudo misconfig abuse. Solid box for anyone practicing foothold → lateral → root paths.

#HackTheBox #CTF #PenetrationTesting #Cybersecurity #PrivilegeEscalation #SandboxEscape #LinuxPrivilegeEscalation #RedTeamOps #BugBountyHunter #EthicalHacking

Hack The Box: Imagery Machine Walkthrough – Medium Difficulity

Just completed the Imagery machine on Hack The Box (Medium). The challenge involved identifying weaknesses in a custom web application, analysing exposed application logic and data, and chaining these issues to move laterally within the system to gain user-level access. Further investigation highlighted how overlooked privilege boundaries and misconfigured trusted utilities can be abused to escalate privileges and obtain full administrative control.

#HackTheBox #CyberSecurity #WebSecurity #EthicalHacking #PenetrationTesting #PrivilegeEscalation #CTF #InfoSec

Hack The Box: HackNet Machine Walkthrough – Medium Diffucility

Just wrapped up HackNet (Medium difficulty, Hack The Box) — what a ride!
Started with deep web enumeration and uncovered a template injection vulnerability in how dynamic content gets rendered. Crafted a payload, injected it into a user-controlled field, triggered the vulnerable path through a specific page interaction, and extracted sensitive account details that handed me valid SSH credentials as a low-priv user. From there, grabbing the user flag was a clean win.
For privilege escalation, enumeration from the foothold revealed a misconfigured, world-writable file-based cache backend in the Django app. Knowing the framework’s caching behavior and a known deserialization weakness, I built a malicious payload, poisoned the cache location, and triggered RCE as the web user. Further digging exposed encrypted database backups secured by public-key crypto; I obtained the key, cracked its passphrase, decrypted the dumps, and recovered a high-priv credential that let me escalate to root and snag the root flag.

#HackTheBox #Cybersecurity #WebExploitation #PrivEsc #PickleRCE #DjangoSecurity #CTF #PenetrationTesting #OffensiveSecurity #BugBounty

Hack The Box: Previous Machine Walkthrough – Medium Difficulty

🎯 Just rooted the ‘Previous’ machine on Hack The Box!

Started with a Next.js app exposing a path traversal bug in /api/download, leaked /etc/passwd → found user ‘jeremy’, then extracted the NextAuth provider code revealing credentials.

Abused .terraformrc dev_overrides to load a malicious custom provider binary.
Classic NextAuth misconfig + Terraform provider override chain. Loved the creativity!

#HackTheBox #CTF #PrivilegeEscalation #PathTraversal #NextJS #Terraform #CyberSecurity #PenetrationTesting #BugBounty”