Hack The Box: DevArea Machine Walkthrough – Medium Difficulty
Just completed the DevArea machine from Hack The Box!
After exploiting a vulnerable Java SOAP service on port 8080, I gained initial access and discovered Hoverfly running on port 8888. Leveraging CVE-2025-54123, I successfully authenticated and delivered a reverse shell, securing the User flag as the dev_ryan user.
For privilege escalation, I took advantage of a sudo permission on the SysWatch management script. By exploiting a symlink attack in the logging functionality, I was able to read /root/root.txt and capture the Root flag.
Really enjoyed this Medium-difficulty box — great mix of Java deserialization/SOAP, API exploitation, and creative Linux privilege escalation!
#HackTheBox #HTB #PenetrationTesting #CyberSecurity #PrivilegeEscalation #CVE #EthicalHacking
