Tag: pivoting

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Presidential CTF

Presidential is my third Capture the Flag exercise. It is rated as Medium to Hard – I wouldn’t say the exploitation techniques are necessarily difficult on this server, but this box will definitely test your enumeration skills. If you need a hint, feel free to contact me – but enumerate harder first.

Enumerate Enumerate Enumerate

This is the best advice I can give you.

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Synopsis:

The Presidential Elections within the USA are just around the corner (November 2020). One of the political parties is concerned that the other political party is going to perform electoral fraud by hacking into the registration system, and falsifying the votes.

The state of Ontario has therefore asked you (an independent penetration tester) to test the security of their server in order to alleviate any electoral fraud concerns (I’m aware Ontario isn’t a real US state – this is meant to be fictional). Your goal is to see if you can gain root access to the server – the state is still developing their registration website but has asked you to test their server security before the website and registration system are launched.

This CTF was created and has been tested with VirtualBox. It should also be compatible with VMWare and is DHCP enabled.

You can download the CTF here. I look forward to your feedback.

SHA-256: 1d402ad612251e4b07bf990d7f55f1d3c5158bf9c0aad4e3663526f4d06a3e97

Write Up’s

A big thanks to 0xatom for doing a write up on this box. If you need help, feel free to read their write up. Though, try harder first. You will find it so much more rewarding if you manage to crack it yourself.

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CTF's My CTF's

PowerGrid CTF

This is my second CTF exercise that I have developed. It is rated as ‘Hard’.

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Synopsis:

Cyber criminals have taken over the energy grid across Europe. As a member of the security service, you’re tasked with breaking into their server, gaining root access, and preventing them from launching their malware before it’s too late.

We know from previous intelligence that this group sometimes use weak passwords. We recommend you look at this attack vector first – make sure you configure your tools properly. We do not have time to waste.

Unfortunately, the criminals have started a 3 hour clock. Can you get to their server in time before their malware is deployed and they destroy the evidence on their server?

The types of vulnerability/techniques used in this CTF can be seen below (they are intentionally hidden by default):

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  • Brute force
  • Pivoting
  • Network enumeration
  • Remote Code Execution
  • Privilege Escalation
  • GPG Decryption

This exercise is designed to be completed in one sitting. Shutting down the virtual machine will not pause the timer. After the timer has finished, the CTF machine will be shut down and you will be unable to boot it. Please keep a local backup of the CTF prior to starting, in case you wish to attempt a second time.

If you are to succeed, I strongly recommend reading these points:

  • Keep a local backup before starting in case you run out of time
  • You will need a basic understanding of the GPG tool and how it works
  • Configure your tools so they work at the maximum/hardest level possible. Make sure you are looping around the correct thing, if you know what I mean
  • Getting the initial shell is possibly the longest part.
  • There are four flags in total. Each flag file will guide you to the next area

This virtual machine has been tested in VirtualBox only. I cannot guarantee it will work on VMWare, but it should be okay.

You can download the CTF here. I look forward to your feedback.

SHA-256: 8bc79937082748c21de14c5da3772f7fc750d52b68cf27816922186f6e68d6b7
Version NumberDescription of ChangesDate of Change
1.0Initial release20/05/2020
1.1Stability release – changed some network settings to make this work correctly in non-VirtualBox setups26/05/2020