I’ve been playing HTB for 549 days according to my profile. I have loved every box/challenge I have ever been lucky enough to complete and am grateful to the machine creators for making. I’m also grateful and forever indebted to ch4p and the HTB team for providing this wonderful platform for the community to sharpen their skills on. I don’t think there is a box I’ve done where I haven’t learnt a thing or two. HTB has taught me so much, it allowed me to start online friendships with like minded people, and it even played a small part in landing me a decent gig in offensive security.
Most of the people complaining about recent boxes seem to be fairly new and came along before HTB became a commercial entity i.e. before VIP existed, before machines were retired, before job ads were posted and before sponsors were displayed on the front page. Maybe this commercialization of the community was the catalyst in the rise of these current self-entitled opinions?
Some advice to those who are unhappy with the current state of boxes:
- if you want to do OSCP like boxes, fork out for VIP and do the retired machines created by ch4p - though maybe exclude brainfuck (which is still one of my favourites)
- “Real world” external engagements generally have ‘slim pickens’ and if you are lucky enough to gain access, it is usually via default creds / password attacks against users i.e. boring - and you don’t learn a thing.
- Want full real world webapp simulation? Go play bounties.
- It helps to look at each machine as a jigsaw puzzle rather than just searching software versions and banners looking for edb exploits. As always, enumeration is key. If you dig far enough you’ll end up finding something. It’s a vulnerable machine after-all, its whole purpose is to be pwn’t.
Finally, some of my favourite boxes that I highly recommend:
- Beep
- Popcorn
- ■■■■■■■
- Brainfuck
- Holiday
- Cronos
- Europa
- Jail
- Joker
- Mantis
- Kotarak
- Hawk
- Bart
- Ariekei
- Crimestoppers
- Fulcrum
- Reddish
- Carrier
Just to name a few. If you feel betrayed after doing a recent box, go do one of the above, you won’t regret it. It’ll add 10 years to your life.