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Troubleshooting Scenarios: Hacking

Linux & Bash

  • - Linux commands, Bash scripting
  • - Systemd
  • - Networking, DNS
  • - Storage
  • - SSH, Firewall
  • - Libraries
  • - Cron and more...

Web Servers

  • - Nginx
  • - Apache
  • - HAProxy
  • - Caddy
  • - Gunicorn
  • - uWSGI
  • - HTTPS/TLS

Databases

  • - PostgreSQL
  • - MySQL
  • - SQLite
  • - Redis
  • - ClickHouse
  • - MongoDB
  • - etcd

Data Processing

  • - CSV
  • - JSON
  • - SQL queries

Docker

  • - Building images
  • - Multi-stage builds
  • - Volumes
  • - Networks
  • - Docker Compose
  • - Podman

Kubernetes

  • - kubectl
  • - Helm
  • - K8S Roles & Permissions
  • - Services
  • - Namespaces
  • - Deployments, StatefulSets
  • - ConfigMaps, Secrets

Tooling / Applications

  • - Git
  • - Rabbitmq
  • - Envoy
  • - Vault
  • - Harbor
  • - Prometheus
  • - Jenkins

Hacking

  • - Capture the Flag (CTF) Challenges
  • - Code Vulnerabilities
  • - Privilege Escalation

Languages

  • - Python
  • - Golang
  • - PHP
  • - Java
  • - Node.js
  • - C
Previous Next
hack
realistic / interviews new pro

Easy

# Name Time Type
1 "Taipei": Come a-knocking 15 m Hack
"Taipei": Come a-knocking

Scenario: "Taipei": Come a-knocking

Level: Easy

Type: Hack

Access: Email

Description: There is a web server on port :80 protected with Port Knocking. Find the one "knock" needed (sending a SYN to a single port, not a sequence) so you can curl localhost.

Test: Executing curl localhost returns a message with md5sum fe474f8e1c29e9f412ed3b726369ab65. (Note: the resulting md5sum includes the new line terminator: echo $(curl localhost))

Time to Solve: 15 minutes.

Medium

# Name Time Type
1 "Paris": Where is my webserver? 15 m Hack
"Paris": Where is my webserver?

Scenario: "Paris": Where is my webserver?

Level: Medium

Type: Hack

Access: Email

Description: A developer put an important password on his webserver localhost:5000 . However, he can't find a way to recover it. This scenario is easy to to once you realize the one "trick".

Find the password and save it in /home/admin/mysolution , for example: echo "somepassword" > ~/mysolution

Scenario credit: PuppiestDoggo

Test: md5sum ~/mysolution returns d8bee9d7f830d5fb59b89e1e120cce8e

Time to Solve: 15 minutes.

2 "Constanta": Jumping Frog 20 m Hack
"Constanta": Jumping Frog

Scenario: "Constanta": Jumping Frog

Level: Medium

Type: Hack

Access: Email

Description: This is a "hacking" or Capture The Flag challenge. You need to copy the message at /home/user3/secret.txt into the /home/admin/solution.txt file.

Test: Running md5sum /home/admin/solution.txt returns the hash 7fe16554d0b326309d980314cebc2994

The "Check My Solution" button runs the script /home/admin/agent/check.sh, which you can see and execute.

Time to Solve: 20 minutes.

3 "La Rinconada": Elevating privileges 15 m Hack
"La Rinconada": Elevating privileges

Scenario: "La Rinconada": Elevating privileges

Level: Medium

Type: Hack

Access: Email

Description: You are logged in as the user "admin" without general "sudo" privileges.
The system administrator has granted you limited "sudo" access; this was intended to allow you to read log files.

Your mission is to find a way to exploit this limited sudo permission to gain a full root shell and read the secret file at /root/secret.txt
Copy the content of /root/secret.txt into the /home/admin/solution.txt file, for example: cat /root/secret.txt > /home/admin/solution.txt (the "admin" user must be able to read the file).

Test: As the user "admin", md5sum /home/admin/solution.txt returns 52a55258e4d530489ffe0cc4cf02030c (we also accept the hash of the same secret string without an ending newline).

The "Check My Solution" button runs the script /home/admin/agent/check.sh, which you can see and execute.

Time to Solve: 15 minutes.

4 "Annapurna": High privileges 20 m Hack
"Annapurna": High privileges

Scenario: "Annapurna": High privileges

Level: Medium

Type: Hack

Access: Email

Description: You are logged in as the user admin.

You have been tasked with auditing the admin user privileges in this server; "admin" should not have sudo (root) access.

Exploit this server so you as the admin user can read the file /root/mysecret.txt
Save the content of /root/mysecret.txt to the file /home/admin/mysolution.txt , for example: echo "secret" > ~/mysolution.txt

Test: Running md5sum /home/admin/mysolution.txt returns 47ee165a2262476f6866902a93f2a41d. (We also accept the md5sum of the same file without a newline at the end).

The "Check My Solution" button runs the script /home/admin/agent/check.sh, which you can see and execute.

Time to Solve: 20 minutes.

Hard

# Name Time Type
1 "Roseau": Hack a Web Server 30 m Hack
"Roseau": Hack a Web Server

Scenario: "Roseau": Hack a Web Server

Level: Hard

Type: Hack

Access: Email

Description: There is a secret stored in a file that the local Apache web server can provide. Find this secret and have it as a /home/admin/secret.txt file.

Note that in this server the admin user is not a sudoer.

Also note that the password crackers Hashcat and Hydra are installed from packages and John the Ripper binaries have been built from source in /home/admin/john/run

Test: sha1sum /home/admin/secret.txt |awk '{print $1}' returns cc2c322fbcac56923048d083b465901aac0fe8f8

Time to Solve: 30 minutes.

2 "Monaco": Disappearing Trick 30 m Hack
"Monaco": Disappearing Trick

Scenario: "Monaco": Disappearing Trick

Level: Hard

Type: Hack

Access: Email

Description: There is a web server on :5000 with a form. POSTing the correct form password into this web service will return a secret.

Save this secret provided by the web page (not the password you sent to it) to /home/admin/mysolution, for example: echo "SecretFromWebSite" > ~/mysolution

TIP: a developer worked on the web server code in this VM, using the same 'admin' account.

Scenario credit: PuppiestDoggo

Test: md5sum /home/admin/mysolution returns a250aa19f16dda6f9fcef286f035ec4b

Time to Solve: 30 minutes.

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Updated: 2026-02-20 23:15 UTC – 8ecb0ab