Completed another Hack The Box machine, Silentium.

Initial access was achieved by exploiting a password-reset vulnerability in the staging Flowise application, followed by abusing a custom MCP endpoint to obtain a root shell inside the Flowise container. Credentials exposed through the container environment were then used to SSH into the underlying host as ben and retrieve the flag.

For privilege escalation, an internal Gogs instance was discovered through local port forwarding. A malicious symlink was pushed and manipulated through the Gogs API to target /etc/sudoers.d/ben, allowing a passwordless sudo rule to be written and ultimately providing full root access.

#HackTheBox #HTB #CyberSecurity #PenetrationTesting #OffensiveSecurity #Linux #PrivilegeEscalation #WebSecurity #CTF …

Learn MoreHack The Box: Silentium Machine Walkthrough – Easy Difficulity

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Completed the Hack The Box “Pirate” machine, a hard-difficulty Active Directory challenge that required chaining multiple attack paths rather than relying on a single vulnerability.

The enumeration phase uncovered domain users, pre-created computer accounts, GMSAs, delegation relationships, and an exposed internal network. Access to gMSA_ADFS_prod$ led to DC01 and enabled an internal pivot to WEB01. From there, the attack chain involved GMSA credential retrieval, NTLM relay, authentication coercion, shadow credentials, certificate-based authentication, and Kerberos ticket abuse.

The privilege escalation path continued through constrained delegation and resource-based constrained delegation. Kerberos ticket manipulation ultimately provided Administrator access to the domain controller, followed by a SYSTEM-level shell and extraction of domain credentials from NTDS.dit. Both the user and root flags were successfully obtained.

Another challenging AD machine completed and another deep dive into Windows authentication, delegation, and privilege escalation.

#HackTheBox #HTB #CyberSecurity #PenetrationTesting #ActiveDirectory #RedTeam #Kerberos #NTLMRelay #ShadowCredentials #GMSA #PrivilegeEscalation #WindowsSecurity #Cybersecurity #Infosec #HTBWriteup …

Learn MoreHack The Box: Pirate Machine Walkthrough – Hard Difficulity

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Completed the Hack The Box “CobbleStone” Insane machine, chaining multiple vulnerabilities to achieve full system compromise.

Initial access was achieved through SSRF in the skin suggestion feature, followed by SQL injection and stored XSS to compromise the administrator’s session. The stolen session cookie provided admin access, leading to Twig SSTI and RCE as www-data. Database credentials recovered through SSTI enabled a database dump and password cracking, resulting in SSH access as cobble and the user flag.

Local enumeration revealed Cobbler’s XML-RPC service on port 25151. After identifying Cobbler 3.3.6 as vulnerable to CVE-2024-47533, a malicious Cheetah template was used to execute commands with root privileges. This provided a root shell and access to /root/root.txt.

#HackTheBox #HTB #CobbleStone #CyberSecurity #PenetrationTesting #OffensiveSecurity #WebSecurity #SSRF #SQLInjection #XSS #SSTI #PrivilegeEscalation #CVE-2024-47533 …

Learn MoreHackTheBox: CobbleStone Machine Walkthrough – Insane Difficulty

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Completed the Hack The Box "Kobold" machine, an easy-difficulty Linux challenge focused on web exploitation and container-based privilege escalation.

The assessment involved identifying and exploiting an unauthenticated Remote Code Execution vulnerability (CVE-2026-23744) in MCPJam Inspector to gain initial access as the ben user. During the privilege escalation phase, I explored Docker security weaknesses by leveraging excessive group permissions to escape the container environment and obtain root access. Additionally, I analyzed an alternative attack path involving CVE-2025-64714 in PrivateBin, which allowed sensitive configuration data exposure and access to the Arcane container management interface. This machine provided practical experience in vulnerability exploitation, container security assessment, and identifying risks associated with exposed internal services.

#HackTheBox #HTB #CyberSecurity #PenetrationTesting #OffensiveSecurity #RedTeam #Linux #Docker #VulnerabilityManagement #CVE #EthicalHacking #CybersecurityLearning …

Learn MoreHack The Box: Kobold Machine Walkthrough – Easy Difficulty

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Just wrapped up another Hack The Box machine: Fries (Hard).

TThis machine provided a realistic attack path that started with source code review in Gitea, where leaked credentials in a Git commit led to authenticated PostgreSQL RCE through pgAdmin. From there, I pivoted through the internal Docker network using Ligolo-ng, abused an exposed NFS share and debugfs to gain host access, then exploited PWM configuration weaknesses to capture LDAP credentials. The final stage involved Active Directory enumeration and AD CS (ESC6/ESC7) abuse to obtain an administrator certificate and compromise the domain. A great lab for practising web exploitation, Docker security, Linux privilege escalation, internal pivoting, and Active Directory attacks.

#HackTheBox #HTB #CyberSecurity #PenetrationTesting #RedTeam #ActiveDirectory #ADCS #Docker #Ligolo #PostgreSQL #Gitea #EthicalHacking #Writeup #CTF …

Learn MoreHack The Box: Fries Machine Walkthrough – Hard Difficulty

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Completed another Hack The Box machine focused on Active Directory exploitation and privilege escalation.

The attack involved SMB enumeration, credential discovery through log analysis, Kerberos authentication, Shadow Credentials abuse, and DLL hijacking to gain user-level access. Further enumeration revealed a WSUS infrastructure weakness, allowing exploitation through Kerberos delegation abuse, certificate-based authentication, and a WSUS machine-in-the-middle attack to achieve Domain Admin privileges. This challenge strengthened my understanding of modern AD attack paths, Kerberos abuse techniques, and enterprise infrastructure security.

#HackTheBox #HTB #CyberSecurity #ActiveDirectory #RedTeam #PenetrationTesting #OffensiveSecurity #EthicalHacking #InfoSec …

Learn MoreHack The Box: Logging Machine Walkthrough – Medium Difficulty

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Just completed the CCTV machine from Hack The Box!

After enumerating the target, I discovered a ZoneMinder instance exposed on the web interface. Using the default administrative credentials, I gained access to the application and identified a SQL injection vulnerability in the removetag endpoint. By leveraging SQLMap, I extracted the database contents and recovered valid credentials through bcrypt hash cracking with Hashcat, allowing SSH access as the mark user and securing the User flag.

For privilege escalation, I discovered a locally running MotionEye service and extracted authentication details from its configuration files. After accessing the internal web interface through SSH port forwarding, I exploited a command injection vulnerability in the image filename configuration to obtain a root shell and capture the Root flag.

Really enjoyed this Easy-difficulty box — a great combination of web application exploitation, SQL injection, credential recovery, and Linux privilege escalation techniques!

#HackTheBox #HTB #PenetrationTesting #CyberSecurity #PrivilegeEscalation #SQLInjection #EthicalHacking #Linux #OffensiveSecurity …

Learn MoreHack The Box: CCTV machine walkthrough – Easy Difficulty

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Just completed the DevArea machine from Hack The Box!

After exploiting a vulnerable Java SOAP service on port 8080, I gained initial access and discovered Hoverfly running on port 8888. Leveraging CVE-2025-54123, I successfully authenticated and delivered a reverse shell, securing the User flag as the dev_ryan user.

For privilege escalation, I took advantage of a sudo permission on the SysWatch management script. By exploiting a symlink attack in the logging functionality, I was able to read /root/root.txt and capture the Root flag.

Really enjoyed this Medium-difficulty box — great mix of Java deserialization/SOAP, API exploitation, and creative Linux privilege escalation!

#HackTheBox #HTB #PenetrationTesting #CyberSecurity #PrivilegeEscalation #CVE #EthicalHacking …

Learn MoreHack The Box: DevArea Machine Walkthrough – Medium Difficulty

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