Official Academy Discussion

Got a shell
Let’s see what we got here

Rooted at long last!
There were just some things in there I didn’t know about.
But that’s great because I learned a lot on this box.
Thanks to @TazWake, @xaif7aLe and @R0cK for their help.

good box

Gang, sometimes flags might be under the nose, just pay attention to last symbols :smiley:

rooted the box and learnt a lot of new stuff. the flag submission keeps giving the incorrect flag error tho

I’m stuck on secret L****** error page. Tried gaining reverse shell using a known vulnerability, but no luck. No idea whether I am working in the right direction. Any nudges?

Type your comment> @iampachinko said:

rooted the box and learnt a lot of new stuff. the flag submission keeps giving the incorrect flag error tho

same, if you fix this can u tell me how u did?

@iampachinko said:

rooted the box and learnt a lot of new stuff. the flag submission keeps giving the incorrect flag error tho

@TeRMaN said:

Type your comment> @iampachinko said:

rooted the box and learnt a lot of new stuff. the flag submission keeps giving the incorrect flag error tho

same, if you fix this can u tell me how u did?

This comes up on every thread about once a week (mostly Mondays). HTB uses dynamic hashes and sometimes they dont work. The hashes should change after every reset and be different on different VPNs - this means that hashes should be used as soon as you get them and that sometimes the process which registers the new hash in the scoring server will break.

If it is a box that is being hit with resets, it becomes imperative that the hash is used immediately as a reset will render it invalid.

Your choices are really:

  • Wait a while, repwn the the box and get a working a hash.
  • Report it to HTB via a jira ticket and get them to fix the problem.

This isn’t something that can be fixed by the forum or by tips from other users.

This was persisting through resets, with US, EU, and free servers, etc. Flag is always the same. I am filing a ticket now.

Type your comment> @svenkali said:

This was persisting through resets, with US, EU, and free servers, etc. Flag is always the same. I am filing a ticket now.

@iampachinko, @TeRMaN, Support seems to have fixed it already.

Finally Rooted the box. It was fun easy box.
You just need to look very carefully for what you want and it will be right there.

PM if you need help

Type your comment> @saulgoodmn said:

Anyone do the user part manually?

Anyone get user manually instead of using msf*******? please PM me if you did. Just IMHO, I would say this is not OSCP like. I rooted and did a personal write up on every box in the public network during my lab time. The OSCP boxes are more like “find the exploit” enumerate, create your payload , find root vector own box. I only seen this method in the training .pdf in the 2020 version.

So I owned this machine and got root a few days back, but since then how I got in no longer works (was going back over my notes). Was how I got in a bug? (Using d**h) If so could someone share the intentional way of getting into this box as I can’t work it out?

You can check my HTB profile for proof: Login :: Hack The Box :: Penetration Testing Labs

@rtm516 said:

So I owned this machine and got root a few days back, but since then how I got in no longer works (was going back over my notes). Was how I got in a bug? (Using d**h) If so could someone share the intentional way of getting into this box as I can’t work it out?

Drop me a PM - I dont know what d**h represents here so I cant give a veiled answer.

Type your comment> @TazWake said:

@0xsp1d3r said:

Is something wrong with the box The Flags are not working !!!

@EX1TZER0 said:

yeah same got root flag like 3 hours ago, but it says incorrect flag when I try to submit it

@DavidWaugh said:

Type your comment> @0xsp1d3r said:

Is something wrong with the box The Flags are not working !!!

I tried the user flag and had the same problem

This comes up on every thread about once a week. HTB uses dynamic hashes and sometimes they dont work. The hashes should change after every reset and be different on different VPNs - this means that hashes should be used as soon as you get them and that sometimes the process which registers the new hash in the scoring server will break.

If it is a box that is being hit with resets, it becomes imperative that the hash is used immediately as a reset will render it invalid.

Your choices are really:

  • Wait a while, repwn the the box and get a working a hash.
  • Report it to HTB via a jira ticket and get them to fix the problem.

This isn’t something that can be fixed by the forum or by tips from other users.

I wonder how many tickets have been opened so far. This is the first time I had this experience. I tried resetting the box last night and even stopping it but I was still getting the same old hash that gave me the incorrect flag message.

Privesc is def OSCP like. Common vector.

root@academy:~# id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root)
root@academy:~# whoami
root
root@academy:~#

A little stuck. Managed to get access to a dev thing, can’t see anything immediately of use on there. Also found what I think might be a correct exploit but can’t get it to work. Anyone able to give me a nudge? Having done two medium boxes in the past few days I’m a little bummed out about getting stuck here.

Type your comment> @JohnEagle said:

A little stuck. Managed to get access to a dev thing, can’t see anything immediately of use on there. Also found what I think might be a correct exploit but can’t get it to work. Anyone able to give me a nudge? Having done two medium boxes in the past few days I’m a little bummed out about getting stuck here.

The dev thing shows some stuff that’s on the box, as well as extra information that’s key to exploiting it.

Wow…just rooted and it is one of the few boxes that has made me post my thoughts and advice here:

Foothold: not hard, simply enumerate carefully and do not dismiss anything. Pay close attention to what you see and interact. Once there, keep enumerating and read carefully.
User 1: Again, enumeration is key, but don’t go crazy.
User 2: Easy to break your head over but pay attention to what you can read and its “appearance”.
Root: Pretty straight forward and the process is not new.

I think this box is not…difficult but not exactly easy. I guess the biggest challenge is not falling for rabbitholes if you wanna call it that!