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Hack The Box: Certificate Machine Walkthrough – Hard Difficulty

I recently completed the “Certificate” challenge on Hack The Box: after extracting and cracking a captured authentication hash I gained access to a user account (lion.sk) and retrieved the user flag, then progressed to full system compromise by responsibly exploiting weak certificate‑based authentication controls—obtaining and converting certificate material into elevated credentials to capture the root flag. The exercise reinforced how misconfigurations in certificate services and poor time synchronization can create powerful escalation paths, and highlighted the importance of least‑privilege, strict enrollment policies, and monitoring certificate issuance. Great hands‑on reminder that defensive hygiene around PKI and identity services matters.

#CyberSecurity #HTB #Infosec #ADCS #Certificates #PrivilegeEscalation #RedTeam #Pentesting

Hack The Box: Inflitrator Machine Walkthrough – Insane Difficulity

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