Skip to content
Home » SQL

SQL

Hack The Box: Cat Machine Walkthrough – Medium Diffculity

Hack The Box Success: Cat Machine Write-Up Published!

I’ve just published my personal write-up for the Cat machine on Hack The Box. In this challenge, I gained the user flag by exploiting a Stored XSS vulnerability to capture the admin session cookie, followed by an SQL Injection to extract credentials and gain SSH access. For the root flag, I took advantage of a vulnerable image processing script owned by root, crafting a payload to gain a root shell and retrieve the flag. The full write-up dives into each step, the logic behind the attacks, and key takeaways.

#CyberSecurity #HackTheBox #PenetrationTesting #EthicalHacking #CTF #WriteUp #XSS #SQLi #PrivilegeEscalation #InfoSec #CTFWriteup

Hack The Box: Ghost Machine Walkthrough – Insane Difficulty

The initial foothold was gained by exploiting command injection on intranet.ghost.htb:8008/api-dev/scan/, which provided a reverse shell inside a Docker container. From there, I enumerated the environment and discovered credentials that allowed SSH access as Florence Ramirez. By extracting and converting a Kerberos ticket, I authenticated as a legitimate user, escalating access within the system. With access to the Windows environment, I retrieved NTLM hashes for the adfs_gmsa account and leveraged evil-winrm for lateral movement. A reverse shell was established using JokerShell, and privileges were escalated by enabling xp_cmdshell through a debug interface. After uploading EfsPotato.cs and disabling antivirus, I used Mimikatz and Rubeus.exe to dump credentials, ultimately achieving SYSTEM access. This led to the extraction of domain admin credentials and the retrieval of the root flag. Another Insane box down! 💀💻

#HackTheBox #RedTeam #CyberSecurity #PenTesting #PrivilegeEscalation #EthicalHacking