Vulnhub machines walkthrough series — Tr0ll: 1
Today, we'll be continuing with our walkthrough series on interesting Vulnhub machines. In this article we will see a walkthrough of the Tr0ll: 1 virtual machine.
Note: For all these machines, I have used VMware Workstation to provision the VMs. Kali Linux VM will be my attacking box. Also, remember the techniques used are solely for educational purposes. I am not responsible if the listed techniques are used against any other targets.
What should you learn next?
Troll: 1 Details
Download Tr0ll: 1 here.
VM description
- Tr0ll was inspired by the constant trolling of the machines within the OSCP labs.
- The goal is simple, gain root and get Proof.txt from the /root directory.
- Not for the easily frustrated! Fair warning, there be trolls ahead!
Walkthrough
- Download the Vulnix VM from above link and provision it as a VM.
- Following the routine from this series, let's try to find the IP of this machine using Netdiscover. Below, we can see our results: the IP address is found as 192.168.213.129.
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As we have done in the past, let's run Nmap scans on the target server to get more information about it.
- We can see that below that the Nmap finds port 80 open, with exposed robots.txt and FTP with anonymous login (there were others as well, like Port 22-SSH). Wow, we are in for a treat! (Or some trolls. Let's find out.)
- Following the leads from Nmap, let's start enumerating the open services. Let's start with Nmap.
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Connecting to FTP client as shown below with anonymous.
- Looking into the present directory, we found out that there is a file called lol.pcap. The name of the file gives an indication what to expect and matches the characteristics of the box.
- Analyzing the file in Wireshark presents an interesting text as shown below. There is some fun and text sup3rs3cr3tloldir. Interesting. (We make note of it.)
- With nothing more do in FTP, let's retrace another bit of juicy info from Nmap: port 80 with robots.txt (with the belief that everything in the box is there for a reason).
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Before we directly jump to robots.txt, let's see what we've got in the home page. All we got is below. Trolled.
- Browsing to robots.txt reveals a directory secret, as shown below.
- Browsing to the directory, we get this. Trolled again.
- What to do next? Remember we got a name in step 8. Let's see if we can actually browse to that directory. Yes, we got a hit! And it has a file named roflmao.
- Downloading the file and checking its type, we could see that it is a 32-bit ELF executable.
- Performing some static analysis on it using strings, we can see an interesting string embedded in the executable. Like "Find address 0x0856BF to proceed."
Remember: sometimes simple binary analysis like strings can reveal a lot of interesting details.
- Following the leads, I tried browsing to that as a directory and we got a hit as well, as we can see below.
- We got two folders: good_luck (contains file which_one_lol.txt) and this_folder_contains_password (pass.txt).
- Below we can see the contents of both of these as well.
- How about we take one of these as the username? The other itself says that it has the password (if we trust the author for a bit).
- Inserting both of these values in Hydra, let's see if we can get a hit on SSH service.
- And we get a hit! We can see it below.
- Without wasting more time, log into the server with the identified credentials.
- First thing to do is to look out for the OS version, like below.
- Though running exploits to escalate privileges should be the last resort, in this case I have taken this approach as we have already tried some other approaches in the previous articles of this series.
- Searching it through searchsploit, we can see that there is an exploit which matches the OS and kernel version both (37292.c).
- Below we can see that the exploit ID downloaded to the server.
- Compiling it locally and running it gives us root. Woohoo!
We win!
So this was Tr0ll: 1. It is very much beginner level, as it's just the enumeration and browsing that we did above. There a sequel called Tr0ll: 2 as well, which I will cover in the next article.
What should you learn next?
In this Series
- Vulnhub machines walkthrough series — Tr0ll: 1
- Top 10 Linux distro for ethical hacking and penetration testing
- Penetration testing steps: How-to guide on pentesting
- How does automated penetration testing work?
- Intelligence-led pentesting and the evolution of Red Team operations
- Red Teaming: Taking advantage of Certify to attack AD networks
- How ethical hacking and pentesting is changing in 2022
- Ransomware penetration testing: Verifying your ransomware readiness
- Red Teaming: Main tools for wireless penetration tests
- Fundamentals of IoT firmware reverse engineering
- Red Teaming: Top tools and gadgets for physical assessments
- Red teaming: Initial access and foothold
- Top tools for red teaming
- What is penetration testing, anyway?
- Red Teaming: Persistence Techniques
- Red Teaming: Credential dumping techniques
- Top 6 bug bounty programs for cybersecurity professionals
- Tunneling and port forwarding tools used during red teaming assessments
- SigintOS: Signal Intelligence via a single graphical interface
- Top tools for mobile android assessments
- Top tools for mobile iOS assessments
- Red Team: C2 frameworks for pentesting
- Inside 1,602 pentests: Common vulnerabilities, findings and fixes
- Red teaming tutorial: Active directory pentesting approach and tools
- Red Team tutorial: A walkthrough on memory injection techniques
- Python for active defense: Monitoring
- Python for active defense: Network
- Python for active defense: Decoys
- How to write a port scanner in Python in 5 minutes: Example and walkthrough
- Using Python for MITRE ATT&CK and data encrypted for impact
- Explore Python for MITRE ATT&CK exfiltration and non-application layer protocol
- Explore Python for MITRE ATT&CK command-and-control
- Explore Python for MITRE ATT&CK email collection and clipboard data
- Explore Python for MITRE ATT&CK lateral movement and remote services
- Explore Python for MITRE ATT&CK account and directory discovery
- Explore Python for MITRE ATT&CK credential access and network sniffing
- Top 10 security tools for bug bounty hunters
- Kali Linux: Top 5 tools for password attacks
- Kali Linux: Top 5 tools for post exploitation
- Kali Linux: Top 5 tools for database security assessments
- Kali Linux: Top 5 tools for information gathering
- Kali Linux: Top 5 tools for sniffing and spoofing
- Kali Linux: Top 8 tools for wireless attacks
- Kali Linux: Top 5 tools for penetration testing reporting
- Kali Linux overview: 14 uses for digital forensics and pentesting
- Top 19 Kali Linux tools for vulnerability assessments
- Explore Python for MITRE ATT&CK persistence
- Explore Python for MITRE ATT&CK defense evasion
- Explore Python for MITRE ATT&CK privilege escalation
- Explore Python for MITRE ATT&CK initial access
- Top 18 tools for vulnerability exploitation in Kali Linux
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