Challenge Overview

A cybersecurity consulting firm had been engaged by a company that was compromised by an unknown attacker. The company's IT department said that the attacker had compromised a content server, and they had restored the content server to the previous backup to keep it running. Your task as a Digital Forensic Investigator is to identify the attack path by attacking the server's replica and finding the vulnerabilities used by the attacker. Your target is a machine running on a Linux Ubuntu OS with an IP address of 10.10.1.44. You are required to discover and exploit the system's vulnerability(s) and perform various attack techniques to gain administrative access. Once you have successfully completed this, you will need to report the vulnerabilities found and their countermeasures.

What You Will Learn

  • Web application exploitation, specifically identifying and exploiting a vulnerable CuteNews instance by bypassing file upload restrictions and renaming a malicious image into a functional PHP web shell.
  • Establishing initial system access via web shell, demonstrating how file upload vulnerabilities can lead to remote command execution on the Ubuntu target (10.10.1.44).
  • Performing password cracking techniques, using John the Ripper to crack a password-protected ZIP archive and pivot to another user account.
  • Conducting effective post-exploitation enumeration, identifying privilege escalation vectors such as custom SUID binaries on the system.
  • Exploiting a misconfigured custom SUID binary, abusing improper calls to the ps command (PATH hijacking or command injection) to escalate privileges and gain full root access.

Program Curriculum

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