Completed MakeSense (Medium) from Hack The Box, achieving both user and root access.

The initial foothold involved investigating a custom WordPress theme and its voice transcription functionality. Source code analysis revealed a hard-coded encryption key and weaknesses in the application’s AJAX implementation. Further investigation led to the recovery of administrator credentials, providing access to the WordPress dashboard. A malicious plugin then enabled remote code execution under the web server account. Additional enumeration uncovered credential reuse in the application configuration, allowing access to the local `walter` account and retrieval of the user flag.

The privilege escalation phase focused on an internally accessible OCR application running on port 8001. Process inspection revealed a root-owned service and script responsible for handling OCR operations. SSH port forwarding provided access to the internal application, where further investigation uncovered a weakness in its processing logic that allowed privileged command execution. The investigation also revealed a SUID-enabled Bash binary, providing an additional path to root access.

MakeSense provided valuable experience in WordPress security, JavaScript source code analysis, application-level vulnerabilities, Linux enumeration, and privilege escalation. It also highlighted how weaknesses in custom application functionality and internal services can lead to complete system compromise.

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Learn MoreHack The Box:MakeSense Machine Walkthrough Medium Difficulity