Full Report
At SensePost we get to enjoy some challenging assessments and do pretty epic things. Some days it feels like the only thing that could make it better would be driving tanks while doing it. The best hacks normally make their way into our training courses as practical exercises where students get to replicate (and improve on) these hacks. However, we know that there isn’t always room for all the epicness and unfortunately not everyone can attend the training. So we put some into a challenge for you. We’ve taken a few recent hacks and rolled them into one challenge, can you crack it?
Analysis Summary
# Main Topic
The core intelligence centers around a public 'Hacking Challenge' released by SensePost, designed to present participants with a series of complex, novel, or "epic" hacks derived from recent security assessments and incorporated into their training courses.
## Key Points
- The challenge requires participants to replicate sophisticated security breaches ("hacks").
- The goal is to progress through a specified path, starting by reading the contents of a file located at `/home/spuser/flag1.txt`.
- Successful completion involves emailing the author with proof of victory and a summary of the methodology used.
- The ultimate prize for the winner is a free seat in one of the SensePost training courses at Black Hat 2014.
## Threat Actors
- No specific malicious threat actors are identified; the context is purely about a controlled, educational/competitive hacking exercise organized by SensePost analysts.
## TTPs
- The specific TTPs are encapsulated within the challenge itself, which reflects proprietary testing techniques derived from "recent hacks" and used in SensePost training (e.g., BlackOps, Infrastructure Bootcamp, Mobile Bootcamp, Web Application Bootcamp).
- Specific TTPs within the challenge are not detailed, only the requirement to replicate advanced hacking steps to find the flag.
## Affected Systems
- The primary affected/target system is the challenge platform itself: `hxxp://challenge.sensepost[.]com/`.
- The starting point for exploitation is inferred to be a Linux-like environment, specifically targeting the file path `/home/spuser/flag1.txt`.
## Mitigations
- Not applicable, as this is an awareness/training exercise, not a real-world intrusion requiring defensive mitigation advisories.
## Conclusion
This report summarizes a promotional release by SensePost detailing a hacking challenge designed to test participant skills using techniques derived from high-level security assessments. The challenge structure itself provides the "threat intelligence" by offering a practical, multi-step security puzzle culminating in flag retrieval from a specified file path on the target server.