// SYSTEM_INFO — READ BEFORE PROCEEDING
Welcome to m4rthacks — a personal archive of CTF writeups, hacking notes, tools, and tips & tricks.
You'll find detailed walkthroughs of Capture The Flag challenges across categories like web exploitation, binary exploitation, cryptography, reverse engineering, forensics, and OSINT. Each writeup breaks down the thought process, the tools used, and the steps taken to get the flag.
Feel free to explore, learn, and hack responsibly.
WRITEUPS: 79
Hack The Box — UnderPass (Linux)
SNMP enumeration exposes a daloRADIUS deployment, default/operator credentials lead to svcMosh, and mosh-server sudo rights are abused to get root.
Hack The Box — BigBang (Linux)
BuddyForms insecure deserialization and filter-chain tricks leak WordPress secrets, CNEXT exploitation gives container RCE, credential reuse and Grafana DB cracking lead to developer, and command injection in the satellite API yields root.
Hack The Box — Vintage (Windows)
Complex AD chain using machine account abuse, gMSA password extraction, group membership abuse, AS-REP roasting, DPAPI credential decryption, constrained delegation abuse, and DCSync to domain compromise.
Hack The Box — Administrator (Windows)
AD privilege chain from Olivia through delegated password resets, Password Safe credential recovery from FTP backup, targeted kerberoasting of ethan, and DCSync to administrator hash for final access.
Hack The Box — LinkVortex (Linux)
Ghost admin credential leak through exposed Git repository, arbitrary file read in Ghost 5.58.0, SSH access as bob, and root via sudo environment variable injection in clean_symlink.sh.
Hack The Box — Ghost (Windows)
Multi-stage compromise from LDAP injection and Ghost API file read to container escape pathing, AD trust key extraction, cross-realm golden ticket forging, and final domain admin access.
Hack The Box — BlockBlock (Linux)
Admin JWT theft via reported XSS, Ethereum JSON-RPC data extraction for credentials, local escalation from keira to paul through forge misuse, and root via pacman hook abuse.
Hack The Box — Alert (Linux)
Contact form SSRF/XSS chain to exfiltrate internal messages and LFI data, credential recovery from .htpasswd, SSH as albert, and root command execution through writable website-monitor config.
Hack The Box — Certified (Windows)
AD attack chain from initial domain creds, WriteOwner/WriteMembers abuse, shadow credentials, certificate abuse (ESC9), and final Administrator hash authentication.
Hack The Box — Chemistry (Linux)
Initial access through a Pymatgen CIF parser RCE, lateral move to user rosa, then root via an aiohttp path traversal vulnerability.
Hack The Box — Instant (Linux)
APK analysis reveals admin JWT and API routes, then IDOR/LFI to steal shirohige SSH key and password recovery through DB hash + Solar-PuTTY credential decryption for root.
Hack The Box — Yummy (Linux)
LFI in iCalendar export, JWT/RSA weakness for admin access, SQLi in admin dashboard, then Mercurial hook abuse and rsync sudo misconfiguration to retrieve root SSH key.