Hack The Box: Mirage Machine Walkthrough – Hard Difficulity
Compromising the Mirage domain started with a simple clue hidden in an exposed NFS share. Inside a PDF report was a missing DNS record—just enough to pivot. By hijacking the DNS entry, I intercepted NATS JetStream traffic and captured real authentication logs, including valid credentials. After fixing the system time and obtaining a Kerberos TGT, I gained my first foothold on the domain controller and captured the user flag.
From there, the path to domain dominance unfolded through Active Directory weaknesses. An SPN ticket leak led to a cracked password, which opened the door to BloodHound reconnaissance and more credentials. I reset a disabled user’s password, extracted a service account’s managed password, and used Certipy to transform certificate abuse into full machine-level impersonation. With Resource-Based Constrained Delegation enabled, I forged Kerberos tickets, dumped every domain hash, and finally authenticated as Administrator—securing the root flag.
#CyberSecurity #PenetrationTesting #Kerberos #ActiveDirectory #RedTeam #HackTheBox #Infosec #PrivilegeEscalation
