Recently I came across a few Jenkins continuous integration servers. A relatively old version I might add but that fact was not important. What was important though was the fact that it was not configured to be ‘secure’. Right out of the box Jenkins does not require any authentication to make use of it. In fact, it seems like its almost plug and play. ...

introduction Recently I decided I wanted to have a look at what Exploit Exercises had to offer. I was after the memory corruption related exploitation stuff to play with, until I saw the details for Nebula. Nebula covers a variety of simple and intermediate challenges that cover Linux privilege escalation, common scripting language issues, and file system race conditions. I did not really have a lot of time on my hands and figured I should start with the “easy” stuff. Many of the levels Nebula presented were in fact very, very easy. However, towards final levels my knowledge was definitely being tested. Levels started taking much longer to complete as I was yet again realizing that the more you learn, the more you realize you you still have to learn. :) This is the path I took to solve the 20 challenges. ...

introduction Vulnhub is 0b10 years old. That is binary for 2 :) In order to celebrate this, @_RastaMouse created Sokar. Sokar was used as another writeup competition (the first for 2015), similar to the Persistence challenge from Sep ‘14. From the competition announcement blogpost, the rules of engagement were pretty familiar. Boot the VM, pwn it via the network and find the flag. Of course, modifying the VM in order to help you get the flag (things like single user mode, rescue disks etc) are not allowed and you have to actually be able to prove how you got r00t. Sokar frustrated me. A lot. However, almost all of the challenges and configurations of Sokar were plausible. Most of the vulnerabilities are valid in the sense that it may as well be out there in wild. So, it was a great learning experience once again! Here is my entry for the competition. Enjoy! :) ...

introduction Not too long ago, I toyed with a Android root detection bypass. In a similar scenario, I was poking at a iOS application that also had some root detection built in. For very much the same purpose, I suppose the application has its own ~reasons~ for the jailbreak detection. Of course, this makes the testing I actually wanted to do impossible as I’d very much like to dig under the hood :) So, its was time to try and bypass the jailbreak detection of the application. All I had to work with was a .ipa. Similar to the android .apk file, the .ipa is also just a zipped up archive of the actual application files. To test with, I had a iPad mini. The iPad was running the latest iOS (8.1.2 at the time of this post) and was also jailbroken. If I remember correctly the jailbreak tool used was called TaiG. Anyways, inside the applications .ipa archive was a whole bunch of resource files and what not, including the compiled application executable. This executable is what is of interest. ...

introduction I will start by saying that I am by no means a expert in anything you are about to read. I am also not 100% sure about the correct terminology for this type of patching. Maybe it should have been called binary patching? I don’t know, but I do know that I was quite literally shocked by the ease of getting this job done, and figured its time to make some notes for me to reflect on later again. Recently I had the opportunity to poke at an Android .apk. My task was a little different from what I am about to blog about, but the fundamental idea remained the same. I wanted to inspect some traffic of an application, but the application had jailbreak detection built in and refused to run if the device its running on is detected as jailbroken. This had to be bypassed first. To play with the apk, I needed to get some tools setup and learn a few things about the Android environment really fast. There are tons of resources available online to describe to you the general idea behind Android, as well as how its all stitched together. You will quickly come to realize that apps can be written in Java. For the purpose of this post, the focus is to bypass the jailbreak detection the apk had and let it continue normal operations. ...

introduction Pegasus 1 is a boot2root hosted on VulnHub built by @TheKnapsy. He wrote a blogpost about it too containing a small introduction with Pegasus as his first boot2root (hoof2root? ;p). Having recently played in the Offsec Playground a little after having completed my OSCP, I was relatively exhausted. Pegasus had its fair share of frustrations and had me digging around quite a bit. I did however learn a very valuable lesson… again. You will see this in the my_first section. Like many other write ups I do, I will also recommend you try this one first before you read on. For me, Pegasus was definitely slightly more difficult than the usual VulnHub stuff you would see, but part of that may just as well be due to fatigue and that year end holiday mode ;p. However, that should not discourage you to give it a bash anyways! Lets begin. ...

As you may know, I recently completed the Penetration testing with Kali Linux training and obtained OSCP certification. It was an amazing experience and really taught me more than just “hacking stuff”. Instead, the training came coupled with self discipline and endurance. By day I make a living in the IT security field, by night, I tinker, research and learn! With PWK over, not long after that, I was privileged enough to be presented with a opportunity to beta test a new product that Offensive Security is planning to launch around January 2015 referred to as… The Playground ...

As I am writing this post, it’s the “morning after” I have received the much awaited email confirming that I have successfully completed the OSCP Certification requirements! In order to obtain OSCP Certification, one must complete some time in the Penetration Testing with Kali Linux labs followed by a grueling 24 hour exam challenge. One really big realization that I came to was the fact that one should not attempt to do this if your goal is simply to get the OSCP Certification. Doing PWK is a excellent opportunity to learn and rushing it may cause you to not make it in the exam. Below is a summary of my experience obtaining OSCP. ...

introduction Kvasir, a boot2root by @_RastaMouse has to be one of my most favorite boot2roots to date, if not the most favorite. Favorite however does not mean it was easy. It also proved to be one of the most challenging ones I have had the chance to try! Kvasir is extremely well polished, and it can be seen throughout the VM that @_RastaMouse has gone through a lot of effort to make every challenge as rewarding as possible. From exploiting simple web based vulnerabilities to service misconfigurations, traffic sniffing, steganography, forensics and cryptopraphy, Kvasir has it all! Solving it also had me make really heavy use of good old netcat. This writeup details the path I took to read the final flag :) ...

introduction Knock-Knock is a vulnerable boot2root VM by @zer0w1re and sure as heck was packed with interesting twists and things to learn! I figured I’d just have a quick look™, and midnight that evening ended up with root privileges :D As always, if you have not done this VM yet, this post is a massive spoiler and I would highly recommend you close up here and try it first :) This is my experience ‘knocking’ on the door. ...