TryHackMe Simple CTF Official Walkthrough

The video provides an official walkthrough of the "Simple CTF" beginner-level challenge on TryHackMe, focusing on practical cybersecurity skills such as CVE research, vulnerability exploitation, and privilege escalation.

Key Technological Concepts and Product Features:

• Enumeration and Scanning:
  • Use of Nmap with aggressive scanning to identify open ports and services (FTP on port 21 with anonymous access, HTTP on port 80, SSH on port 2222).
  • Exploration of FTP with anonymous login to retrieve files that hint at weak password reuse.
• Web Application Analysis:
  • Accessing the web server revealing an Apache default page and discovering a subdirectory /simple hosting CMS Made Simple v2.2.8.
  • Use of GoBuster for directory enumeration to find hidden directories.
  • Identification of the CMS version to research known vulnerabilities.
• Vulnerability Research and Exploitation:
  • Searching Exploit DB for CVEs related to CMS Made Simple, focusing on CVE-2019-9053, an SQL Injection vulnerability.
  • Downloading and running a Python exploit script for the SQL Injection (noting Python 2 dependencies and module installation challenges on the TryHackMe free attack box).
  • Extracting user credentials (username and salted password hash) from the exploit output.
• Password Cracking:
  • Using Hashcat to crack the MD5 hashed password with a wordlist (rockyou.txt).
  • Demonstration of troubleshooting Hashcat command syntax and hash modes.
  • Successfully recovering the password (secret).
• Access and Privilege Escalation:
  • Logging in via SSH on a non-standard port (2222) using the cracked credentials.
  • Enumerating users and checking sudo privileges (sudo -l).
  • Exploiting the ability to run vim with sudo without a password to spawn a root shell using GTFOBins (a repository of Unix binaries for privilege escalation).
  • Accessing the root flag (root.txt).

Guides and Tutorials Highlighted:

• Basic enumeration with Nmap and FTP anonymous login.
• Directory brute forcing with GoBuster.
• Researching CVEs on Exploit DB and identifying relevant exploits based on software version.
• Running Python exploit scripts and managing dependencies.
• Using Hashcat for password cracking and adjusting commands for different hash modes.
• SSH login on non-standard ports.
• Privilege escalation via sudo misconfigurations and GTFOBins.

Main Speaker:

• Darksack (Dark) – The video creator and guide walking through the entire CTF challenge step-by-step.

This walkthrough is a practical tutorial for beginners learning penetration testing basics, focusing on reconnaissance, vulnerability exploitation, password cracking, and privilege escalation techniques using real-world tools and resources.