Bloodhound Archives - Threatninja.net

24 Oct, 2026

Hack The Box: Checkpoint Machine Walkthrough Medium Difficulty

Medium Machine BadSuccessor.ps1, Bloodhound, bloodyAD, Challenges, CVE-2025-55319, devdrop, HackTheBox, kerbad, kerberos, nxc, Penetration Testing, Rubeus, smbclient, ticketconverter, vmem, vscode, Windows

Just finished the Checkpoint machine on Hack The Box (Medium difficulty) and it was a really enjoyable Active Directory box with some modern and creative attack paths.

I started with the provided credentials for `alex.turner`. After some enumeration I discovered that a previously deleted account (`mark.davies`) could be restored and that this account had write access to a share called DevDrop. This share was used by the organisation to stage VS Code extensions.

By creating a malicious VSIX extension targeting VS Code engine version 1.118.0 and dropping it on the share, a scheduled task automatically installed the extension and gave me a reverse shell as `ryan.brooks`. This was a really clean example of abusing enterprise software deployment processes.

From the `ryan.brooks` foothold I used Rubeus to obtain a TGT, then leveraged bloodyAD to create a malicious dMSA under a writable OU and impersonated a higher-privileged account. This eventually granted access to a VMBackups share containing a Windows Server memory dump. Using Volatility I extracted the local Administrator NTLM hash from the dump, authenticated with Evil-WinRM, and captured the root flag.

Overall, Checkpoint does a great job of chaining together several current techniques: writable shares for extension abuse, deleted object restoration, dMSA abuse, and memory forensics. It’s a solid Medium box that feels realistic and rewards careful enumeration.

Would recommend it to anyone working on modern Windows / Active Directory attack paths.

#HackTheBox #CyberSecurity #PenetrationTesting #ActiveDirectory #RedTeam #HTB #InfoSec #WindowsSecurity #PrivilegeEscalation #Kerberos #MemoryForensics …

Learn MoreHack The Box: Checkpoint Machine Walkthrough Medium Difficulty

19 Sep, 2026

Hack The Box: Hercules Machine Walkthrough – Insane Diffucility

Insane Machine Bloodhound, bloodyAD, BurpSuite, Certipy, Challenges, changepassword.py, describeticket.py, dotnet, getTGT, HackTheBox, hashcat, impacket-getST, kerbrute, LDAP, odt, Penetration Testing, PowerView, python3, responder, SSO Authentication, Windows, winrmexec

Completed another Hack The Box machine: Hercules, an Insane difficulty Active Directory challenge.

This was one of the longer attack chains I have worked through, involving multiple stages across web exploitation, credential access, Active Directory enumeration, privilege escalation, AD CS, and Kerberos abuse.

The initial foothold started with LDAP username enumeration and the discovery of credentials stored in an account description. After gaining access to the Hercules Portal, a directory traversal vulnerability exposed the web.config file and its ASP.NET machineKey values. These values allowed a forged Forms Authentication cookie to impersonate web_admin.

From there, a malicious ODT upload triggered an outbound NTLM authentication attempt, allowing the NetNTLMv2 credentials for natalie.a to be captured and cracked. The recovered credentials opened the path to Shadow Credentials against bob.w and stephen.m, followed by OU permission abuse to gain control of the Auditor account.

The privilege escalation chain continued through the Forest Migration OU, where fernando.r was enabled and used to identify an ESC3 misconfiguration. An Enrollment Agent certificate was then obtained and abused to request a certificate for ashley.b, leading to further access within the domain.

The final stages involved controlling IIS_Administrator, taking control of the iis_webserver$ machine account, extracting the required Kerberos session key, and abusing S4U2self/S4U2proxy to impersonate Administrator. This ultimately provided access to the root flag under C:\Users\Admin\Desktop.

Hercules was a great exercise in chaining several seemingly separate weaknesses together rather than relying on a single vulnerability. Definitely a box that required careful enumeration and keeping track of the relationships between users, groups, OUs, certificates, and Kerberos tickets.

Documented as part of my continued HTB practice and learning in Active Directory and offensive security.

#HackTheBox #HTB #Hercules #CyberSecurity #ActiveDirectory #PenetrationTesting #RedTeam #OffensiveSecurity #BloodHound #Certipy #ADCS #ESC3 #Kerberos #ShadowCredentials #PrivilegeEscalation #InfoSec #CyberSecurityLearning …

Learn MoreHack The Box: Hercules Machine Walkthrough – Insane Diffucility

25 Jul, 2026

Hack The Box: Fries Machine Walkthrough – Hard Difficulty

Hard Machine Bloodhound, Certipy, Challenges, DebugFS, docker, Gitea, gobuster, HackTheBox, hashcat, LDAP injection, Ligolo-ng, Linux, metasploit, nfs, Penetration Testing, pgAdmin4, port forwarding, PostgreSQL, rustscan, Samba, ssh, Windows

Just wrapped up another Hack The Box machine: Fries (Hard).

TThis machine provided a realistic attack path that started with source code review in Gitea, where leaked credentials in a Git commit led to authenticated PostgreSQL RCE through pgAdmin. From there, I pivoted through the internal Docker network using Ligolo-ng, abused an exposed NFS share and debugfs to gain host access, then exploited PWM configuration weaknesses to capture LDAP credentials. The final stage involved Active Directory enumeration and AD CS (ESC6/ESC7) abuse to obtain an administrator certificate and compromise the domain. A great lab for practising web exploitation, Docker security, Linux privilege escalation, internal pivoting, and Active Directory attacks.

#HackTheBox #HTB #CyberSecurity #PenetrationTesting #RedTeam #ActiveDirectory #ADCS #Docker #Ligolo #PostgreSQL #Gitea #EthicalHacking #Writeup #CTF …

Learn MoreHack The Box: Fries Machine Walkthrough – Hard Difficulty

18 Jul, 2026

Hack The Box: Logging Machine Walkthrough – Medium Difficulty

Medium Machine Bloodhound, bloodyAD, Certipy, Challenges, DLL Hijacking, evil-winrm, getTGT, HackTheBox, IIS, kerberos, nxc, Penetration Testing, Rubeus, smbclient, smbmap, ticketconverter, Windows, Wsuks, WSUS

Completed another Hack The Box machine focused on Active Directory exploitation and privilege escalation.

The attack involved SMB enumeration, credential discovery through log analysis, Kerberos authentication, Shadow Credentials abuse, and DLL hijacking to gain user-level access. Further enumeration revealed a WSUS infrastructure weakness, allowing exploitation through Kerberos delegation abuse, certificate-based authentication, and a WSUS machine-in-the-middle attack to achieve Domain Admin privileges. This challenge strengthened my understanding of modern AD attack paths, Kerberos abuse techniques, and enterprise infrastructure security.

#HackTheBox #HTB #CyberSecurity #ActiveDirectory #RedTeam #PenetrationTesting #OffensiveSecurity #EthicalHacking #InfoSec …

Learn MoreHack The Box: Logging Machine Walkthrough – Medium Difficulty

20 Jun, 2026

Hack The Box: Nanocorp Machine Walkhtrough – Hard Difficulity

Hard Machine Bloodhound, bloodyAD, BurpSuite, Challenges, CheckMK Agent, CVE-2024-0670, evil-winrm, gobuster, HackTheBox, hashcat, responsder, Windows

We completed the “Nanocorp” Active Directory lab on Hack The Box, covering full chain exploitation from initial access to domain compromise.

User access was achieved by exploiting a ZIP extraction flaw in a recruitment portal, leading to NTLM hash capture via a malicious .library-ms file and credential recovery for web_svc. Active Directory misconfigurations allowed privilege escalation to monitoring_svc through BloodHound-guided abuse of ForceChangePassword rights.

Root access was obtained after enumerating CheckMK Agent 2.1 on the Domain Controller. A web shell enabled command execution as web_svc, followed by exploitation of the CheckMK MSI repair process (CVE-2024-0670) using RunasCs to achieve SYSTEM-level access.

#HackTheBox #ActiveDirectory #Pentesting #RedTeam #PrivilegeEscalation #CyberSecurity #WindowsDomain #BloodHound …

Learn MoreHack The Box: Nanocorp Machine Walkhtrough – Hard Difficulity

4 Apr, 2026

Hack The Box: Darkzero Machine – Hard Difficulity

Hard Machine Bloodhound, certif, Certify, Challenges, chisel, evil-winrm, HackTheBox, ligolo, mssqlclient, openssl, Penetration Testing, proxychains, python3, rubeus.exe, secretdump, ticketconverter, Windows

Just completed the DarkZero machine from HackTheBox (Hard difficulty)!

After gaining a foothold on DC02 via a misconfigured MSSQL linked server and escalating to local Administrator using SigmaPotato token impersonation + RunasCs, we successfully captured the user flag from the Administrator’s desktop.

Dumped the domain Administrator NT hash with secretsdump, then used Evil-WinRM to get a full shell as Administrator on DC02 and retrieved the root flag.

#HackTheBox #HTB #Pentesting #ActiveDirectory #RedTeam #CyberSecurity #PrivilegeEscalation …

Learn MoreHack The Box: Darkzero Machine – Hard Difficulity

9 Aug, 2025

Hack The Box: University Machine Walkthrough – Insane Walkthrough

Insane Machine Bloodhound, BurpSuite, Challenges, CVE-2023-33733, evil-winrm, HackTheBox, LocalPotato, Penetration Testing, python3, ssh, SSH key, Windows

Compromised university.htb by exploiting ReportLab RCE (CVE-2023-33733) to gain initial access as wao. Forged a professor certificate to impersonate george, then uploaded a malicious lecture to compromise Martin.T.

Escalated privileges by exploiting a scheduled task with a malicious .url file, used LocalPotato (CVE-2023-21746) for elevation on WS-3, and abused SeBackupPrivilege to extract NTDS.dit, ultimately retrieving Domain Admin credentials.

🔍 A great hands-on challenge combining web exploitation, privilege escalation, and Active Directory abuse.

#CyberSecurity #RedTeam #CTF #PrivilegeEscalation #HTB #InfoSec #WindowsExploitation #PenetrationTesting #EthicalHacking #HackTheBox …

Learn MoreHack The Box: University Machine Walkthrough – Insane Walkthrough

19 Jul, 2025

Hack The Box: Scepter Machine Walkthrough – Hard Difficulty

Hard Machine ADCS, Bloodhound, bloodyAD, Certipy, Challenges, ESC14, ESC9, evil-winrm, HackTheBox, hashcat, ldapsearch, nfs, openssl, Penetration Testing, showmount, Windows

I conquered the “Scepter” machine on Hack The Box, a challenging Active Directory exploit! Initially, I cracked weak .pfx certificate passwords using pfx2john and rockyou.txt. After syncing time, I extracted D.BAKER’s NTLM hash via Certipy and used BloodHound to reveal A.CARTER’s password reset privileges, exploiting ESC9 to capture the user flag. Subsequently, H.BROWN’s access to P.ADAMS’s altSecurityIdentities enabled an ESC14 attack, forging a certificate for passwordless authentication. Consequently, P.ADAMS’s DCSync rights allowed domain hash extraction, securing the root flag via Evil-WinRM.

#Cybersecurity #HackTheBox #ActiveDirectory #PrivilegeEscalation #CTF #EthicalHacking …

Learn MoreHack The Box: Scepter Machine Walkthrough – Hard Difficulty

28 Jun, 2025

Hack The Box: Haze Machine Walkthrough – Hard Difficulty

Hard Machine Active Directory, Bloodhound, bloodyAD, Certipy, Challenges, CVE-2024-36991, evil-winrm, HackTheBox, Linux, Local File Inclusion (LFI), NetExec, Penetration Testing, pywhisker, Splunk, splunksecrets, SweetPotato

New Write-Up Published: Haze [Medium | Windows | Active Directory] – Hack The Box

Just released a walkthrough for Haze, a medium-difficulty Windows machine on Hack The Box. Initial access was obtained by exploiting CVE-2024-36991, a local file inclusion vulnerability in Splunk, to extract LDAP credentials. This enabled a Shadow Credentials attack using PyWhisker and Certipy, allowing lateral movement to a high-privileged domain user. For privilege escalation, I utilized Splunk admin access to deploy a reverse shell via a crafted app package. Upon gaining shell access, I escalated privileges to NT SYSTEM by abusing SeImpersonatePrivilege with SweetPotato. This box offers great insight into chained Active Directory abuse and Splunk misconfigurations.

#HackTheBox #RedTeam #ActiveDirectory #Splunk #CVE202436991 #ShadowCredentials #PrivilegeEscalation #SweetPotato #CTF #InfoSec #WriteUp #CyberSecurity …

Learn MoreHack The Box: Haze Machine Walkthrough – Hard Difficulty

14 Jun, 2025

Hack The Box: Inflitrator Machine Walkthrough – Insane Difficulity

Insane Machine bitlocker, Bloodhound, BloodHoundCE, bloodyAD, BurpSuite, Certipy, Challenges, evil-winrm, HackTheBox, hashcat, impacket, john the ripper, kerbrute, Output Messenger, Penetration Testing, RDP, sqlite3, Windows, Wireshark

Successfully completed a two-stage Active Directory exploitation scenario involving both user access and privilege escalation. The first stage focused on identifying accounts that did not require Kerberos pre-authentication (AS-REP Roasting), allowing extraction and cracking of a user password hash to gain remote access and retrieve the user flag. In the second stage, a misconfigured certificate template (ESC4 vulnerability) within Active Directory Certificate Services was exploited to request a certificate impersonating a privileged user. This enabled full administrative access and retrieval of the root flag.

#CyberSecurity #ActiveDirectory #RedTeam #Kerberos #PrivilegeEscalation #ASREP #ADCS #ESC4 #PenetrationTesting #Infosec #HackTheBox #WindowsSecurity #CTF
Successfully completed a two-stage Active Directory exploitation scenario involving both user access and privilege escalation. The first stage focused on identifying accounts that did not require Kerberos pre-authentication (AS-REP Roasting), allowing extraction and cracking of a user password hash to gain remote access and retrieve the user flag. In the second stage, a misconfigured certificate template (ESC4 vulnerability) within Active Directory Certificate Services was exploited to request a certificate impersonating a privileged user. This enabled full administrative access and retrieval of the root flag.

#CyberSecurity #ActiveDirectory #RedTeam #Kerberos #PrivilegeEscalation #ASREP #ADCS #ESC4 #PenetrationTesting #Infosec #HackTheBox #WindowsSecurity #CTF
…

Learn MoreHack The Box: Inflitrator Machine Walkthrough – Insane Difficulity

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