// 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: 87
Hack The Box — Cat (Linux)
Stored XSS steals admin session, SQLite injection writes web shell, credential reuse and log leakage pivot to axel, then Gitea XSS-driven repo theft reveals root credentials.
Hack The Box — Haze (Windows)
A Splunk path traversal leaks secrets and LDAP bind credentials, enabling AD pivoting through reused passwords and gMSA abuse, then shadow credentials and Splunk admin RCE lead to SYSTEM and Administrator compromise.
Hack The Box — Titanic (Linux)
LFI in ticket download leaks Gitea data, password recovery gives SSH as developer, and ImageMagick delegate injection in a root-run script yields root shell.
Hack The Box - Infiltrator (Windows)
AS-REP roasting and AD ACL abuse chain to m.harris access, lateral move to Output Messenger infrastructure, and extraction of Administrator flag via internal MySQL load_file.
Hack The Box — Backfire (Linux)
Exposed Havoc config leaks operator creds, SSRF-to-RCE lands shell as ilya, HardHatC2 auth bypass gives command execution as sergej, and sudo iptables abuse writes root authorized_keys.
Hack The Box — Checker (Linux)
TeamPass credential disclosure and BookStack blind SSRF/LFR expose SSH MFA secret, then a vulnerable root sudo binary is reversed and exploited through shared-memory tampering to command injection and root shell.
Hack The Box — EscapeTwo (Windows)
Starting with provided low-priv credentials, SMB and MSSQL enumeration yields credential reuse, WriteOwner over a CA account enables AD object abuse, and ESC4 template abuse leads to Administrator certificate authentication.
Hack The Box — Heal (Linux)
LFI in resume download exposes internal Rails artifacts and credentials, admin access to LimeSurvey enables plugin-based RCE, and internal Consul exploitation through chisel pivot yields root.
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.