https://bluenets1.github.io/ ai engineer, low-level engineer, security researcher en Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:05:39 GMT https://bluenets1.github.io/#/videos/cybersecurity/wtf-sql-injection https://bluenets1.github.io/#/videos/cybersecurity/wtf-sql-injection Thu, 01 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT sql injection web A no-nonsense walkthrough of SQL injection — what it actually is, stripped of the hype. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/videos/cybersecurity/wtf-are-proxies https://bluenets1.github.io/#/videos/cybersecurity/wtf-are-proxies Thu, 01 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT proxies networking A fundamentals-first look at proxies — what they are and what they're actually for. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/videos/cybersecurity/containers https://bluenets1.github.io/#/videos/cybersecurity/containers Thu, 01 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT containers isolation Containers explained with a security lens — not a deployment tutorial. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/videos/cybersecurity/malware-analysis https://bluenets1.github.io/#/videos/cybersecurity/malware-analysis Thu, 01 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT malware blue team An introduction to malware analysis, framed the way a defender actually approaches it. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/ai-writings/llm-internals/how-an-ai-model-uses-a-computer https://bluenets1.github.io/#/ai-writings/llm-internals/how-an-ai-model-uses-a-computer Wed, 07 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT agents computer-use vision A low-level tour of computer-use agents, from JSON tool calls through x86-64 syscalls, XTEST, platform input APIs, screenshot patches, coordinate transforms, and context management. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/videos/low-level/virtual-memory-walkthrough https://bluenets1.github.io/#/videos/low-level/virtual-memory-walkthrough Sat, 26 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT memory mmu Summary. Every pointer you've ever dereferenced was a lie — a virtual address the MMU translates to physical memory through page tables. This video walks through that translation live in a debugger. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/videos/low-level/how-syscalls-work https://bluenets1.github.io/#/videos/low-level/how-syscalls-work Fri, 25 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT linux kernel Summary. A syscall is a controlled jump from user mode into the kernel. On x86-64 Linux, you put the syscall number in rax, arguments in rdi, rsi, rdx, r10, r8, r9, and execute syscall. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/ai-writings/llm-internals/stop-paying-your-llm-to-say-wait https://bluenets1.github.io/#/ai-writings/llm-internals/stop-paying-your-llm-to-say-wait Fri, 25 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT llms reasoning inference Token-budget-aware reasoning, from TALE (2024) to adaptive thinking (2026): the math, the benchmarks, and a controller you can build this weekend. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/ai-writings/building-with-llms/structured-outputs https://bluenets1.github.io/#/ai-writings/building-with-llms/structured-outputs Wed, 23 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT json production "Just ask it to return JSON" works until it doesn't. Here is how to get structured output you can actually parse in production. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/ai-writings/building-with-llms/rag-is-just-search https://bluenets1.github.io/#/ai-writings/building-with-llms/rag-is-just-search Wed, 16 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT rag retrieval Retrieval-augmented generation sounds exotic. It is mostly search with extra steps, and most RAG problems are really search problems wearing a trench coat. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/bf1pr/basics/hello-bf1pr https://bluenets1.github.io/#/bf1pr/basics/hello-bf1pr Thu, 10 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT intro First post in bf1pr. Replace this with your own writing. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/bf1pr/basics/project-layout https://bluenets1.github.io/#/bf1pr/basics/project-layout Tue, 08 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT meta A quick note on how this section is organized so future-you can find things. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/white-belt/computing-101/3-the-stack/5-stack-addresses-as-number-line https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/white-belt/computing-101/3-the-stack/5-stack-addresses-as-number-line Thu, 09 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The stack is easiest to reason about if you remember that addresses are just numbers. Diagrams often draw the stack vertically, but the numbers themselves still have a simple left-to-right order: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/white-belt/computing-101/3-the-stack/4-popping-from-the-stack https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/white-belt/computing-101/3-the-stack/4-popping-from-the-stack Thu, 09 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Why is the stack called a stack? So far, we've just used it as a region of memory that we read from with mov, like any other memory dereference. But the stack is meant to be used as, well, a stack of data: you pop values off the top! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/white-belt/computing-101/3-the-stack/3-program-arguments-on-the-stack https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/white-belt/computing-101/3-the-stack/3-program-arguments-on-the-stack Thu, 09 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You've now read [rsp] to get the argument count, and [rsp+128] to get data at an offset. Let's look at what else is on the stack! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/white-belt/computing-101/4-nibbling-on-numbers https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/white-belt/computing-101/4-nibbling-on-numbers Thu, 09 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity A byte is eight bits; half of one (four bits) is a nibble. This module nibbles at numbers from the bit up: how a pile of bits comes to mean a positive or a negative number in binary, hexadecimal, and decimal. Understanding this is critical to truly knowing how the CPU processe… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/white-belt/computing-101/3-the-stack/2-stack-offsets https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/white-belt/computing-101/3-the-stack/2-stack-offsets Sun, 05 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In the previous challenge, you read the value at [rsp]: the very top of the stack. But the stack has lots of data on it, and you can access any of it by adding an offset to rsp. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/white-belt/computing-101/3-the-stack/1-the-stack https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/white-belt/computing-101/3-the-stack/1-the-stack Sun, 05 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity So far, we've been loading data from memory at addresses that we gave you: either hardcoded (like 133700) or stored in a register (like rax). But there's one region of memory that your program already has access to without any setup from us: the stack. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/19-dealing-with-obfuscation-2 https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/19-dealing-with-obfuscation-2 Tue, 20 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Can you go further? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/18-dealing-with-obfuscation https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/18-dealing-with-obfuscation Tue, 20 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Security-oblivious developers often use encoding-based obfuscation in lieu of encryption. This sort of obfuscation typically fails to prevent determined hackers from accessing the data in question, especially once they read the software logic implementing it. Put yourself in t… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/17-dealing-with-obfuscation https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/17-dealing-with-obfuscation Tue, 20 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Security-oblivious developers often use encoding-based obfuscation in lieu of encryption. This sort of obfuscation typically fails to prevent determined hackers from accessing the data in question, especially once they read the software logic implementing it. Put yourself in t… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/16-encoding-base64 https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/16-encoding-base64 Tue, 20 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Needless to say, you can also encode things to base64! Go do that now! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/15-decoding-base64 https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/15-decoding-base64 Tue, 20 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity ASCII and UTF-8 are encodings meant for very specific data: text (or text-like characters). Hex encoding is more general, and you can apply it to any data. The reason that we might use an encoding like hex is to transfer information via some medium where it is hard to write ar… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/14-modifying-encoding-data https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/14-modifying-encoding-data Tue, 20 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity So far, we have seen a few types of encodings: UTF-8, UTF-16, extended ASCII (latin-1), and hex encoding. This encoding translates data, whether that's a concept such as a 🎈 emoji character or an actual byte in memory into other bytes. What happens when you mess with the enco… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/13-utf-mixups https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/13-utf-mixups Tue, 20 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity UTF-8 is the current king of encodings. It is used, for example, by the vast majority of websites on the internet. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/2-talking-web https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/2-talking-web Tue, 20 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the lingua franca of the open Internet: the common tongue through which web applications, servers, and clients communicate. This module delves deep into the intricate skills of crafting, decoding, and manipulating HTTP requests and respons… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/12-hex-encoding-with-utf-8 https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/12-hex-encoding-with-utf-8 Mon, 19 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Once computing went international and emojis were added, people needed to be able to use more than 256 possible characters at a time. In the modern era, this has been largely solved by the UTF-8 encoding. UTF-8 is a specific multi-byte encoding of Unicode, a global standardize… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/11-nested-encoding https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/11-nested-encoding Mon, 19 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity now just echo the value and do /challenge/runme https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/10-hex-encoding-ascii https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/10-hex-encoding-ascii Mon, 19 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Now, let's talk about strings! In Python, strings are meant for human consumption. A string is a sequence of characters that a human might write down, read, speak, and dream. This includes things like letters of the alphabet but also things like 🕴️. When one thinks about how … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/9-encoding-practice https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/9-encoding-practice Mon, 19 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity def decodefrombits(s): https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/8-decoding-hex https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/8-decoding-hex Mon, 19 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Now, let's decode some hex, rather than encoding it. Can you figure out what the program needs? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/7-more-hex https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/7-more-hex Sun, 18 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You're not limited to two hex digits! Like decimal numbers, you can add arbitrary amounts of them to represent more and more bytes. Every two hex digits are one additional byte. One hex digit, for those curious, is called a nibble (har har!), but this is not used when specifyi… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/6-binary-hex-encoding https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/6-binary-hex-encoding Sun, 18 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Now, life must get complex. You may have noticed the b letters in front of the password constants throughout this module. Python has two types of string-like constants: strings (specified as "asdf") and bytes (specified as b"asdf"). Let's talk about bytes in this level. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/5-specifying-filenames https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/5-specifying-filenames Sun, 18 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/4-reasoning-about-files https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/4-reasoning-about-files Sat, 10 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Let's explore some other ways programs might take security-relevant input. Here, the program does not read the password from the terminal. Can you still crack it? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/3-newline-troubles https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/3-newline-troubles Sat, 10 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The previous challenges were quite simple, as is this one. But it does one thing slightly differently: it does not ignore the Enter that you press on the terminal when entering your password. This causes your enteredpassword to contain a newline, and since correctpassword has … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/2-and-again https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/2-and-again Sat, 10 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Once more into the breach, dear hacker! Just to make sure you get the idea. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/1-whats-the-password https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/playing-with-programs/1-dealing-with-data/1-whats-the-password Sat, 10 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Let's start your journey through encodings with something simple. This program takes a password, but you have no way to know what it is... unless you READ it! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/11-web-server https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/11-web-server Sat, 10 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In the final challenge, your server must seamlessly support both GET and POST requests within a single program. After reading the incoming request using read, your server will inspect the first few characters to determine whether it is dealing with a GET or a POST. Depending o… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/10-iterative-get-server https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/10-iterative-get-server Sat, 10 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Previously, your server served just one GET request before terminating. Now, you will modify it so that it can handle multiple GET requests sequentially. This involves wrapping the accept-read-write-close sequence in a loop. Each time a client connects, your server will accept… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/9-concurrent-post-server https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/9-concurrent-post-server Sat, 10 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Expanding your server’s capabilities further, this challenge focuses on handling HTTP POST requests concurrently. POST requests are more complex because they include both headers and a message body. You will once again use fork to manage multiple connections, while using read … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/8-concurrent-get-server https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/8-concurrent-get-server Sat, 10 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity To enable your server to handle several clients at once, you will introduce concurrency using the fork syscall. When a client connects, fork creates a child process dedicated to handling that connection. Meanwhile, the parent process immediately returns to accept additional co… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/7-dynamic-response https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/7-dynamic-response Sat, 10 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this challenge, your server evolves to handle dynamic content based on HTTP GET requests. You will first use the read syscall to receive the incoming HTTP request from the client socket. By examining the request line--particularly, in this case, the URL path--you can determ… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/6-static-response https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/6-static-response Sat, 10 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Now that your server can establish connections, it’s time to learn how to send data. In this challenge, your goal is to send a fixed HTTP response (HTTP/1.0 200 OK\r\n\r\n) to any client that connects. You will use the write syscall, which requires a file descriptor, a pointer… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/5-accept https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/5-accept Sat, 10 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Once your socket is listening, it’s time to actively accept incoming connections. In this challenge, you will use the accept syscall, which waits for a client to connect. When a connection is established, it returns a new socket file descriptor dedicated to communication with … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/4-listen https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/4-listen Sat, 10 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity With your socket bound to an address, you now need to prepare it to accept incoming connections. The listen syscall transforms your socket into a passive one that awaits client connection requests. It requires the socket’s file descriptor and a backlog parameter, which sets th… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/3-bind https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/3-bind Sat, 10 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity After creating a socket, the next step is to assign it a network identity. In this challenge, you will use the bind syscall to connect your socket to a specific IP address and port number. The call requires you to provide the socket file descriptor, a pointer to a struct socka… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/2-socket https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/2-socket Sat, 10 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this challenge, you’ll begin your journey into networking by creating a socket using the socket syscall. A socket is the basic building block for network communication; it serves as an endpoint for sending and receiving data. When you invoke socket, you provide three key ar… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/1-exit https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/7-building-a-web-server/1-exit Sat, 10 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Your first task is to create the simplest possible program—one that immediately terminates when run. In this challenge, you will use the exit syscall, which is responsible for ending a process and returning an exit status to the operating system. This syscall takes a single ar… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/8-broken-functions https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/8-broken-functions Wed, 07 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The previous level showed you raw, but unrefined power. This level will force you to refine it, as the win function will no longer work. break at it, look around, and understand what is wrong. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/7-modifying-data https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/7-modifying-data Wed, 07 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity As it turns out, gdb has FULL control over the target process. Not only can you analyze the program's state, but you can also modify it. While gdb probably isn't the best tool for doing long term maintenance on a program, sometimes it can be useful to quickly modify the behavi… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/6-modifying-execution https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/6-modifying-execution Wed, 07 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity This level will expose you to some of the true power of gdb. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/5-gdb-scripting https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/5-gdb-scripting Wed, 07 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We write code in order to express an idea which can be reproduced and refined. We can think of our analysis as a program which injests the target to be analyzed as data. As the saying goes, code is data and data is code. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/4-setting-breakpoints https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/4-setting-breakpoints Tue, 06 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity This is about navigating through your program to reach the exact spot where you want to investigate a bug or behaviour. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/3-examining-memory https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/3-examining-memory Mon, 05 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Next, we'll learn to use gdb to peek into process memory! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day24-exploitation-with-curl-hoperation-eggsploit https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day24-exploitation-with-curl-hoperation-eggsploit Thu, 25 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Applications, like our browsers, communicate with servers using HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). Think of HTTP as the language for asking a server for resources (pages, images, JSON data) and getting answers back. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day22-aws-security-s3cret-santa https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day22-aws-security-s3cret-santa Thu, 25 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity One of our stealthiest infiltrated elves managed to hop their way into Sir Carrotbane’s office and, lo and behold, discovered a bundle of cloud credentials just lying around on his desktop like forgotten carrots. The agent suspects these could be the key to regaining access to… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day21-c2-detection-command-carol https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day21-c2-detection-command-carol Thu, 25 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Real Intelligence Threat Analytics (RITA) is an open-source framework created by Active Countermeasures. Its core functionality is to detect command and control (C2) communication by analyzing network traffic captures and logs. Its primary features are: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day20-malware-analysis-malhare-exe https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day20-malware-analysis-malhare-exe Tue, 23 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity And in our kingdom of Wareville, just like in others, thousands of files of all kinds pass through the systems every day, from DOCX, PDF resumes received by our elves, to financial spreadsheets, CSVs from the accounting department, and executable files launched by different ap… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day19-ics-modbus-claus-for-concern https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day19-ics-modbus-claus-for-concern Sat, 20 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The snow falls heavily over Wareville as chaos erupts at TBFC headquarters. What should be the busiest shipping day of the season has turned into a disaster. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day18-obfuscation-the-egg-shell-file https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day18-obfuscation-the-egg-shell-file Sat, 20 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity WareVille has not felt right since the wormhole appeared. Everyone in TBFC is on high alert: Systems are going haywire, dashboards are spiking, and SOC alerts have been firing nonstop. Amid the chaos, McSkidy keeps her focus on a particular alert that caught her interest: an e… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day17-cyberchef-hoperation-save-mcskidy https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day17-cyberchef-hoperation-save-mcskidy Thu, 18 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity McSkidy is imprisoned in King Malhare's Quantum Warren. Sir BreachBlocker III was put in charge of securing the fortress and implemented several access controls to prevent any escape. His defenses are worthy of his name. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day16-forensics-registry-furensics https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day16-forensics-registry-furensics Wed, 17 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Your brain stores all the information that you need to function effectively. This includes: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day15-web-attack-forensics-drone-alone https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day15-web-attack-forensics-drone-alone Wed, 17 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/3-insecure-data-handling/4-a08-software-or-data-integrity-failures https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/3-insecure-data-handling/4-a08-software-or-data-integrity-failures Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Again, Software or Data Integrity failures have been a long-standing feature on the OWASP Top 10 list, featuring twice over the last two releases. Let's explore this a bit further below. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/3-insecure-data-handling/3-a05-injection https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/3-insecure-data-handling/3-a05-injection Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Injection has been a long-standing feature on the OWASP Top 10 list, and it is no surprise. Injection remains a classic example of web exploitation. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/3-insecure-data-handling/2-a04-cryptographic-failures https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/3-insecure-data-handling/2-a04-cryptographic-failures Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Cryptographic failiures makes yet another appearence on this OWASP Top 10 list. Let's explore what this exactly and some mitigation steps below. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/3-insecure-data-handling/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/3-insecure-data-handling/1-introduction Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity This room will introduce you to 3 elements of the OWASP Top 10 list (2025). In this room, you will learn about the elements relating to application behaviour and user input. We will cover these vulnerabilities briefly, how to prevent them, and finally, you will practice exploi… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/2-application-design-flaws/6-conclusion https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/2-application-design-flaws/6-conclusion Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Security design failures across AS02 Security Misconfigurations, AS03 Software Supply Chain Failures, AS04 Cryptographic Failures, and AS06 Insecure Design all come from the same root cause: weak foundations. You cannot add security at the end and expect it to work. Strong sys… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/2-application-design-flaws/5-as06-insecure-design https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/2-application-design-flaws/5-as06-insecure-design Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity What It Is https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/2-application-design-flaws/4-as04-cryptographic-failures https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/2-application-design-flaws/4-as04-cryptographic-failures Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity What It Is https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/2-application-design-flaws/3-as03-software-supply-chain-failures https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/2-application-design-flaws/3-as03-software-supply-chain-failures Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity What It Is https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/2-application-design-flaws/2-as02-security-misconfigurations https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/2-application-design-flaws/2-as02-security-misconfigurations Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity What It Is https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/2-application-design-flaws/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/2-application-design-flaws/1-introduction Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity This room breaks each 4 of the OWASP Top 10 2025 categories. In this room, you will learn about the categories that are related to failures in architecture and system design. You will put the theory into practice by completing supporting challenges. The following categories ar… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/1-iaaa-failures/6-conclusion https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/1-iaaa-failures/6-conclusion Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You’ve just worked through the essentials of Identity, Authentication, Authorisation, and Accountability in web applications and how it can cause several of the categories of vulnerabilities discussed in OWASP Top 10:2025. The big ideas to keep: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/1-iaaa-failures/5-a09-logging-alerting-failures https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/1-iaaa-failures/5-a09-logging-alerting-failures Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity When applications don’t record or alert on security-relevant events, defenders can’t detect or investigate attacks. Good logging underpins accountability (being able to prove who did what, when, and from where). In practice, failures look like missing authentication events, va… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/1-iaaa-failures/4-a07-authentication-failures https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/1-iaaa-failures/4-a07-authentication-failures Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Authentication Failures happen when an application can’t reliably verify or bind a user’s identity. Common issues include: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/1-iaaa-failures/3-a01-broken-access-control https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/1-iaaa-failures/3-a01-broken-access-control Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Broken Access Control happens when the server doesn’t properly enforce who can access what on every request. A common occurence of this is IDOR (Insecure Direct Object Reference): if changing an ID (like ?id=7 → ?id=6) lets you see or edit someone else’s data, access control i… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/1-iaaa-failures/2-what-is-iaaa https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/1-iaaa-failures/2-what-is-iaaa Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity IAAA is a simple way to think about how users and their actions are verified on applications. Each item plays a crucial role and it isn't possible to skip a level. That means, if a previous item isn't being performed, you cannot perform the later times. The four items are: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/1-iaaa-failures/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10-2025/1-iaaa-failures/1-introduction Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity This room breaks down 3 of the OWASP Top 10 2025 categories. In this room, you will learn about the categories that are related to failures in how Identity, Authentication, Authorisation, and Accountability (IAAA) is implemented in the application. You will put the theory into… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/2-training-impact-on-teams/5-conclusion https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/2-training-impact-on-teams/5-conclusion Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity This room discussed the importance of training at the company level. Training is an indispensable ingredient for a cyber security team’s performance. Many people, especially knowledge workers, believe in lifelong learning, and many companies encourage and require their employe… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/2-training-impact-on-teams/4-vendor-selection https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/2-training-impact-on-teams/4-vendor-selection Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Now that we have learned the importance of training, we need to consider the selection of the training vendor. There are a few essential questions to consider, which can aid in vendor selection. We list the following questions that those responsible for vendor selection should… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/2-training-impact-on-teams/3-write-a-cyber-security-training-investment-proposal https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/2-training-impact-on-teams/3-write-a-cyber-security-training-investment-proposal Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Companies invest in their employees as any intelligent, wealthy person invests in their assets. Although you expect your company to realise the importance of training and encourage or even require employees to undergo specific training routes, sometimes you must make a case to… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/2-training-impact-on-teams/2-cyber-security-training-for-large-organisations https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/2-training-impact-on-teams/2-cyber-security-training-for-large-organisations Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity For smaller teams, off-the-shelf training would be the most logical choice. However, if your team exceeds a certain size, typically beyond twenty employees, or if your training needs are very specific, it makes sense to customise existing training to your organisation’s needs.… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/2-training-impact-on-teams/1-understanding-the-impact-of-cyber-security-training https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/2-training-impact-on-teams/1-understanding-the-impact-of-cyber-security-training Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity How would you master any skill? By practice and training. Cyber security is no different. Nobody is born a cyber security expert; everyone needs to gain the relevant skills and work diligently to keep them up to date and build upon them. However, practising what you learn in c… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/9-conclusion https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/9-conclusion Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity This room covered various principles and concepts related to security. By now, you should be very familiar with CIA and DAD and other terms such as authenticity, repudiation, vulnerability, threat, and risk. We visited three security models and the ISO/IEC 19249. We have cover… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/8-threat-versus-risk https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/8-threat-versus-risk Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity There are three terms that we need to take note of to avoid any confusion. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/7-zero-trust-versus-trust-but-verify https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/7-zero-trust-versus-trust-but-verify Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Trust is a very complex topic; in reality, we cannot function without trust. If one were to think that the laptop vendor has installed spyware on the laptop, they would most likely end up rebuilding the system. If one were to mistrust the hardware vendor, they would stop using… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/6-iso-iec-19249 https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/6-iso-iec-19249 Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) have created the ISO/IEC 19249. In this task, we will brush briefly upon ISO/IEC 19249:2017 Information technology - Security techniques - Catalogue of architectura… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/5-defence-in-depth https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/5-defence-in-depth Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Defence-in-Depth refers to creating a security system of multiple levels; hence it is also called Multi-Level Security. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/4-fundamental-concepts-of-security-models https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/4-fundamental-concepts-of-security-models Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We have learned that the security triad is represented by Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability (CIA). One might ask, how can we create a system that ensures one or more security functions? The answer would be in using security models. In this task, we will introduce th… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/3-dad https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/3-dad Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The security of a system is attacked through one of several means. It can be via the disclosure of secret data, alteration of data, or destruction of data. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/2-cia https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/2-cia Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Before we can describe something as secure, we need to consider better what makes up security. When you want to judge the security of a system, you need to think in terms of the security triad: confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA). https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/build-your-career-in-cybersecurity/1-security-principles/1-introduction Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Security has become a buzzword; every company wants to claim its product or service is secure. But is it? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/9-conclusion https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/9-conclusion Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this room, we have shown the basic components and concepts related to Active Directories and Windows Domains. Keep in mind that this room should only serve as an introduction to the basic concepts, as there's quite a bit more to explore to implement a production-ready Activ… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/8-trees-forests-and-trusts https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/8-trees-forests-and-trusts Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity So far, we have discussed how to manage a single domain, the role of a Domain Controller and how it joins computers, servers and users. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/7-authentication-methods https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/7-authentication-methods Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity When using Windows domains, all credentials are stored in the Domain Controllers. Whenever a user tries to authenticate to a service using domain credentials, the service will need to ask the Domain Controller to verify if they are correct. Two protocols can be used for networ… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/6-group-policies https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/6-group-policies Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity So far, we have organised users and computers in OUs just for the sake of it, but the main idea behind this is to be able to deploy different policies for each OU individually. That way, we can push different configurations and security baselines to users depending on their de… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/5-managing-computers-in-ad https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/5-managing-computers-in-ad Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity By default, all the machines that join a domain (except for the DCs) will be put in the container called "Computers". If we check our DC, we will see that some devices are already there: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/4-managing-users-in-ad https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/4-managing-users-in-ad Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Your first task as the new domain administrator is to check the existing AD OUs and users, as some recent changes have happened to the business. You have been given the following organisational chart and are expected to make changes to the AD to match it: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/3-active-directory https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/3-active-directory Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The core of any Windows Domain is the Active Directory Domain Service (AD DS). This service acts as a catalogue that holds the information of all of the "objects" that exist on your network. Amongst the many objects supported by AD, we have users, groups, machines, printers, s… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/1-windows-domains https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/1-windows-domains Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity - Managing a small network (5 computers/users) can be done manually. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/0-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/active-directory/0-introduction Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Microsoft's Active Directory is the backbone of the corporate world. It simplifies the management of devices and users within a corporate environment. In this room, we'll take a deep dive into the essential components of Active Directory. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day14-containers-doordashers-demise https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day14-containers-doordashers-demise Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity It seemed as the sun rose this morning, it had already been decided that today would be another day of chaos in Wareville. At least that’s the feeling all the folks at “DoorDasher” got. DoorDasher is Warevilles local food delivery site, a favourite of the workers in The Best F… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/4-flare-vm/4-analysing-malicious-files https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/4-flare-vm/4-analysing-malicious-files Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this task, we'll get our hands dirty. Let's dive right in! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/4-flare-vm/3-commonly-used-tools-for-investigation https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/4-flare-vm/3-commonly-used-tools-for-investigation Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Let's examine the tools we will focus on in this room. These tools are the basic ones used for initial investigations. See the list below. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/4-flare-vm/2-arsenal-of-tools https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/4-flare-vm/2-arsenal-of-tools Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this task, we'll introduce you to tools inside the FlareVM. It has many specialized forensics, incident response, and malware investigation tools. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/4-flare-vm/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/4-flare-vm/1-introduction Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity FlareVM, or "Forensics, Logic Analysis, and Reverse Engineering," stands out as a comprehensive and carefully curated collection of specialized tools uniquely designed to meet the specific needs of reverse engineers, malware analysts, incident responders, forensic investigator… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/3-remnux/6-conclusion https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/3-remnux/6-conclusion Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this room, we had a hands-on introduction to the REMnux VM, where we could use tools like oledump.py for file analysis. We also created a fake network using INetSim and preprocessed a memory capture using volatility and strings. All of these tools are included just inside t… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/3-remnux/5-memory-investigation-evidence-preprocessing https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/3-remnux/5-memory-investigation-evidence-preprocessing Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity One of the most common investigative practices in Digital Forensics is the preprocessing of evidence. This involves running tools and saving the results in text or JSON format. The analyst often relies on tools such as Volatility when dealing with memory images as evidence. Th… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/3-remnux/4-fake-network-to-aid-analysis https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/3-remnux/4-fake-network-to-aid-analysis Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity During dynamic analysis, it is essential to observe the behaviour of potentially malicious software—especially its network activities. There are many approaches to this. We can create a whole infrastructure, a virtual environment with different core machines, and more. Alterna… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/3-remnux/3-file-analysis https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/3-remnux/3-file-analysis Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this task, we will use oledump.py to conduct static analysis on a potentially malicious Excel document. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/3-remnux/2-machine-access https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/3-remnux/2-machine-access Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The machine will start in a split-screen view and might take 2-3 minutes to boot up. It is expected to have the an output similar to the image below. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/3-remnux/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/3-remnux/1-introduction Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Analysing potentially malicious software can be daunting, especially when this is part of an ongoing security incident. This analysis puts much pressure on the analyst. Most of the time, the results must be as accurate as possible, and analysts use different tools, machines, a… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/2-capa-the-basics/7-more-knowledge-more-fun https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/2-capa-the-basics/7-more-knowledge-more-fun Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Aren't you curious about what precisely within the rule was matched? Well, I am! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/2-capa-the-basics/6-dissecting-capa-results-part-4-capability https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/2-capa-the-basics/6-dissecting-capa-results-part-4-capability Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this task, we will continue the discussion from the previous task. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/2-capa-the-basics/5-dissecting-capa-results-part-3-namespaces https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/2-capa-the-basics/5-dissecting-capa-results-part-3-namespaces Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We will divide the discussion into two main topics: Capability and Namespace. In this task, we will focus on the discussion of Namespace. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/2-capa-the-basics/4-dissecting-capa-results-part-2-malware-behavior-catalogue https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/2-capa-the-basics/4-dissecting-capa-results-part-2-malware-behavior-catalogue Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this task, we will cover the following topics: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/2-capa-the-basics/3-dissecting-capa-results-part-1-general-information-mitre-and-maec https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/2-capa-the-basics/3-dissecting-capa-results-part-1-general-information-mitre-and-maec Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity As mentioned in the previous task, the results of running CAPA against cryptbot.bin  will be discussed in the succeeding task. As such, we will dissect the results per block and topic. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day13-yara-rules-yara-mean-one https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day13-yara-rules-yara-mean-one Sun, 14 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity When McSkidy went missing, there was chaos and uncertainty at The Best Festival Company (TBFC). However, even in her disappearance, McSkidy was trying to help the TBFC blue team. Taking a page out of the crisis communication process, McSkidy sent what looks like a bunch of ima… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/2-capa-the-basics/2-tool-overview-how-capa-works https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/2-capa-the-basics/2-tool-overview-how-capa-works Sun, 14 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this task, we will see how to use CAPA.  Running the tool is as easy as 1..2..3.  First, open a PowerShell, noting that it might take a while before the prompt appears. Next is to make sure that you are in the correct directory (C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\capa); then yo… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/2-capa-the-basics/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/2-capa-the-basics/1-introduction Sun, 14 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity One of the challenges when analyzing potentially malicious software is that we risk our machine or environment being compromised when we run it unless we have a sandbox or a completely isolated environment where we can test all we want. Generally speaking, there are two types … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day12-phishing https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day12-phishing Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Phishing may be one of the oldest cyber tricks, but it’s still one of the most effective. As companies like TBFC strengthen their defences with advanced email filters and security tools, attackers have evolved their tactics to stay one step ahead. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day11-xss https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day11-xss Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity For today's room we will be using a the web app found under http://10.49.134.20. You can use the browser of your AttackBox to navigate to it. You will see a page as shown below: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day10-soc-alert-triaging-tinsel-triage https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day10-soc-alert-triaging-tinsel-triage Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Please follow the instructions below to access your lab for the task. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/4-vulnerability-scanning/5-openvas https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/4-vulnerability-scanning/5-openvas Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity As discussed in Task 3, OpenVAS is a complete open-source vulnerability scanner. In this task, we will see how to conduct a vulnerability scan using the OpenVAS scanner. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/4-vulnerability-scanning/4-cve-cvss https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/4-vulnerability-scanning/4-cve-cvss Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Imagine yourself as the person sitting on the help desk of an IT complaint office managing many clients. You deal with hundreds of complaints daily regarding IT outages or several other problems requiring support from your company. Let’s see how CVE and CVSS help you track all… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/4-vulnerability-scanning/3-tools-for-vulnerability-scanning https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/4-vulnerability-scanning/3-tools-for-vulnerability-scanning Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity There are many tools available for performing automated vulnerability scanning, each offering unique features. Let’s discuss some of the widely used vulnerability scanners. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/4-vulnerability-scanning/2-vulnerability-scanning https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/4-vulnerability-scanning/2-vulnerability-scanning Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Vulnerability scanning is the inspection of digital systems to find weaknesses. Organizations carry critical information in their digital infrastructure. They must regularly scan their systems and networks for vulnerabilities, as attackers can leverage these vulnerabilities to… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/4-vulnerability-scanning/1-what-are-vulnerabilities https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/4-vulnerability-scanning/1-what-are-vulnerabilities Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Imagine you are living in a small, lovely house. One day, you notice that your roof has many small holes. If not treated, these small holes can cause significant problems. During rain, water can come through these leaks and damage your furniture. Dust particles and insects can… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/1-cyberchef-the-basics/6-your-first-official-cook https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/1-cyberchef-the-basics/6-your-first-official-cook Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity This task allows us to apply what we've learned from the previous tasks. We'll utilize CyberChef's areas and its features to answer the questions being asked. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/1-cyberchef-the-basics/5-practice-practice-practice https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/1-cyberchef-the-basics/5-practice-practice-practice Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We want you to be as prepared as possible. Therefore, we will explore some of this task's most commonly used operation categories. Recognizing which category to utilize can enhance your ability to use the tool more efficiently and effectively. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/1-cyberchef-the-basics/4-before-anything-else https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/1-cyberchef-the-basics/4-before-anything-else Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Hold your horses! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/1-cyberchef-the-basics/3-navigating-the-interface https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/1-cyberchef-the-basics/3-navigating-the-interface Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity CyberChef consists of four areas. Each consists of different components or features. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/1-cyberchef-the-basics/2-accessing-the-tool https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/1-cyberchef-the-basics/2-accessing-the-tool Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity There are different ways to access and run CyberChef. Let's check the two most convenient methods! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/1-cyberchef-the-basics/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/defensive-security-tooling/1-cyberchef-the-basics/1-introduction Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity CyberChef is a simple, intuitive web-based application designed to help with various “cyber” operation tasks within your web browser. Think of it as a Swiss Army knife for data - like having a toolbox of different tools designed to do a specific task. These tasks range from si… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day09-passwords-a-cracking-christmaslearn-how-to-crack-password-based-encrypted-files https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day09-passwords-a-cracking-christmaslearn-how-to-crack-password-based-encrypted-files Wed, 10 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity With time between Easter and Christmas being destabilised, the once-quiet systems of The Best Festival Company began showing traces of encrypted data buried deep within their servers. Sir Carrotbane, stumbled upon a series of locked PDF and ZIP files labelled “North Pole Asset… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day08-prompt-injection-sched-yule-conflict https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day08-prompt-injection-sched-yule-conflict Tue, 09 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Sir BreachBlocker III has corrupted the Christmas Calendar AI agent in Wareville. Instead of showing the Christmas event, the calendar shows Easter, confusing the people in Wareville. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/react2shell/08-conclusion https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/react2shell/08-conclusion Tue, 09 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Now that you have come this far, it is essential that you refrain from attempting such penetration tests against any system without explicit permission and a written agreement. The primary purpose of this room is to allow you to experiment in a safe laboratory environment with… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/react2shell/07-detection https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/react2shell/07-detection Tue, 09 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity This portion of the room will provide various detection mechanisms for recognising React2Shell / CVE-2025-55182 within your network and environment. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/react2shell/06-exploitation https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/react2shell/06-exploitation Tue, 09 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You can confirm that you can view the app’s home page by visiting http://10.48.170.59:3000. Now, it is time to exploit it. At the time of writing, our preferred choice is a payload that allows us to view the command execution result in the server’s response, as obtained from h… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/react2shell/05-analysing-an-actual-proof-of-concept https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/react2shell/05-analysing-an-actual-proof-of-concept Tue, 09 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Let’s examine the complete HTTP request from maple3142’s PoC: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/react2shell/04-the-exploitation-chain-from-deserialization-to-remote-code-execution https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/react2shell/04-the-exploitation-chain-from-deserialization-to-remote-code-execution Tue, 09 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Now let’s dissect how maple3142’s proof-of-concept achieves remote code execution. The exploit cleverly chains together multiple JavaScript engine behaviours to transform a deserialization bug into arbitrary code execution. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/react2shell/03-the-core-vulnerability-unsafe-deserialization https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/react2shell/03-the-core-vulnerability-unsafe-deserialization Tue, 09 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity CVE-2025-55182 is fundamentally an unsafe deserialization vulnerability in how React Server Components handle incoming Flight protocol payloads. The vulnerability exists in the requireModule function within the react-server-dom-webpack package. Let’s examine the problematic co… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/react2shell/02-understanding-react-server-components-and-the-flight-protocol https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/react2shell/02-understanding-react-server-components-and-the-flight-protocol Tue, 09 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Before we can grasp the vulnerability, we need to understand the architecture of React Server Components. React Server Components is a feature introduced in React 19 that allows components to be rendered on the server rather than the client’s browser. This provides significant… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/react2shell/01-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/react2shell/01-introduction Tue, 09 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this task, we will explore CVE-2025-55182, one of the most critical vulnerabilities discovered in December 2025, with a maximum CVSS score of 10.0. This vulnerability affects React Server Components (RSC) and the frameworks that implement them, particularly Next.js. The vul… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day07-network-discovery https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day07-network-discovery Mon, 08 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Christmas preparations are delayed - HopSec has breached our QA environment and locked us out! Without it, the TBFC projects can't be tested, and our entire SOC-mas pipeline is frozen. To make things worse, the server is slowly transforming into a twisted EAST-mas node. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day06-malware-analysis https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day06-malware-analysis Mon, 08 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Malware analysis is the process of examining a malicious file to understand its functionality, operation, and methods for defence against it. By analysing a malicious file or application, we can see exactly how it operates, and therefore, know how to prevent it. For example, c… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day05-idor https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day05-idor Sat, 06 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Have you ever seen a link that looks like this: https://awesome.website.thm/TrackPackage?packageID=1001? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day04-ai-in-security https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day04-ai-in-security Sat, 06 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Ah, yes, artificial intelligence, that buzzword that seems here to stay. Who would have thought? Today’s room will highlight some ways AI is utilised in cyber security, along with important considerations to bear in mind when deploying AI for such tasks. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cloudsek https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cloudsek Sat, 06 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity = Hey, CloudSEK Team. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/3-ids-fundamentals/5-practical-lab https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/3-ids-fundamentals/5-practical-lab Fri, 05 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Scenario: You are a third-party forensic investigator. A company contacts you to investigate a recent attack on their network. They handed over a PCAP file named "IntrotoIDS.pcap", which contained the network traffic captured during the attack. Your task is to run Snort on thi… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/3-ids-fundamentals/4-snort-usage https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/3-ids-fundamentals/4-snort-usage Fri, 05 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity During Snort installation, you must provide your network interface and range. You can run Snort normally, where it only captures the traffic intended for your host. However, if you want to use Snort to capture and detect intrusions in your whole network, you must turn on the p… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/3-ids-fundamentals/3-ids-example-snort https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/3-ids-fundamentals/3-ids-example-snort Fri, 05 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Snort is one of the most widely used open-source IDS solutions developed in 1998. It uses signature-based and anomaly-based detections to identify known threats. These are defined in the rule files of the Snort tool. Several built-in rule files come pre-installed in this tool’… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/3-ids-fundamentals/2-types-of-ids https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/3-ids-fundamentals/2-types-of-ids Fri, 05 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity IDS can be categorized differently depending on certain factors. An IDS’s main categorization depends on its deployment and detection modes. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/3-ids-fundamentals/1-what-is-ids https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/3-ids-fundamentals/1-what-is-ids Fri, 05 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity As we know,, firewalls are the security solution usually deployed on the boundary of a network to protect its incoming and outgoing traffic. The firewall checks the traffic when a connection is going to take place and denies it if it violates the firewall rules. However, there… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day03-splunk-basics-did-you-siem https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/tryhackme-advent-of-cyber/day03-splunk-basics-did-you-siem Thu, 04 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In the Splunk instance, the data has been pre-ingested for us to investigate the incident. On the Splunk interface, click on Search & Reporting on the left panel, as shown below: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/2-firewall-fundamentals/5-linux-iptables-firewall https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/2-firewall-fundamentals/5-linux-iptables-firewall Thu, 04 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In the previous task, we discussed the built-in firewall available in the Windows OS. What if you are a Linux user? You still need control over your network traffic. Linux also offers the functionality of a built-in firewall. We have multiple firewall options available here. L… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/2-firewall-fundamentals/4-windows-defender-firewall https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/2-firewall-fundamentals/4-windows-defender-firewall Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Windows Defender is a built-in firewall introduced by Microsoft in the Windows OS. This firewall contains all the basic functionality for creating, allowing, or denying specific programs or creating customised rules. This task is designed to cover some of the essential compone… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/2-firewall-fundamentals/3-rules-in-firewalls https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/2-firewall-fundamentals/3-rules-in-firewalls Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity A firewall gives you control over your network’s traffic. Although it filters the traffic based on its built-in rules, some customised rules can be defined for various networks. For example, there would be networks that want to deny all the SSH traffic coming into their networ… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/2-firewall-fundamentals/2-types-of-firewalls https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/2-firewall-fundamentals/2-types-of-firewalls Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Firewall deployment became common in networks after organizations discovered their ability to filter harmful traffic from their systems and networks. Several different types of firewalls were introduced afterward, each serving a unique purpose. It's also important to note that… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/2-firewall-fundamentals/1-whats-the-purpose-of-firewall https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/2-firewall-fundamentals/1-whats-the-purpose-of-firewall Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We have seen security guards outside shopping malls, banks, restaurants, and houses. These guards are placed at the entrances of these areas to keep a check on people coming in or going out. The purpose of maintaining this check is to ensure nobody sneaks in without being perm… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/1-siem-intro/6-lab-work https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/1-siem-intro/6-lab-work Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In the static lab attached, a sample dashboard and events are displayed. When a suspicious activity happens, an Alert is triggered, which means some events match the condition of some rule already configured. Complete the lab and answer the following questions. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/1-siem-intro/5-alert-process-and-analysis https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/1-siem-intro/5-alert-process-and-analysis Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We learned that a SIEM solution detects threats by correlating logs from the log sources and triggers alerts, but do we know the magic behind these detections? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/1-siem-intro/4-log-sources-and-ingestion https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/1-siem-intro/4-log-sources-and-ingestion Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Every device in the network generates some kind of log whenever an activity is performed on it, such as a user visiting a website, connecting to SSH, logging into their workstation, etc. Let's see what the logs of some common devices that are found in a network environment loo… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/1-siem-intro/3-why-siem https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/1-siem-intro/3-why-siem Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In the previous task, we saw how different log sources generate numerous logs of various types and the challenges associated with analyzing those logs. So, how can we more efficiently manage this flood of data and extract valuable results? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/1-siem-intro/2-logs-everywhere-answer-nowhere https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/1-siem-intro/2-logs-everywhere-answer-nowhere Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Multiple devices in a network communicate with each other and, most of the time, with the Internet through a router. The image below shows an example of a simple network that comprises multiple Linux/Windows-based Endpoints, one data server, and one website. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/1-siem-intro/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/security-solutions/1-siem-intro/1-introduction Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Security Information and Event Management system (SIEM) is the core security solution that a SOC analyst uses in the security operations center. In this room, we will learn how different devices in a network generate logs and why it's essential to have a centralized solution t… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/advent-of-pwn-2025 https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/advent-of-pwn-2025 Mon, 01 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Objective: The challenge involves a binary check-list that maintains Santa's Naughty-or-Nice list using "meticulous byte-level bookkeeping". We need to provide the correct input that satisfies a series of byte-level checks to retrieve the flag. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/9-little-endian-big-endian https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/9-little-endian-big-endian Sat, 29 Nov 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-2/4-playing-with-encodings https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-2/4-playing-with-encodings Sat, 29 Nov 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-2/3-text-encoding https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-2/3-text-encoding Sat, 29 Nov 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity C program '\X' escapes are noted. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-2/2-hex https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-2/2-hex Sat, 29 Nov 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-2/1-lecture-binary-data https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-2/1-lecture-binary-data Sat, 29 Nov 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-2/0-dealing-with-data-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-2/0-dealing-with-data-introduction Sat, 29 Nov 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Computer software communicates with each other by exchanging variously-formatted data via various communication channels. Learning about this concurrently with learning about security concepts can be overwhelming, and thus, this module tries to prepare you for the latter by co… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/4-types-of-encryption https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/4-types-of-encryption Sun, 16 Nov 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The two main categories of encryption are symmetric and asymmetric. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/7-tcp-ip-model https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/7-tcp-ip-model Sun, 02 Nov 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The table below shows how the TCP/IP model layers map to the ISO/OSI model layers. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/2-inspecting-registers https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/2-inspecting-registers Thu, 30 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Next, we'll learn about how to print out the values of registers. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/0-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/0-introduction Thu, 30 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity A critical part of working with computing is understanding what goes wrong when something inevitably does. This module will build on your prior exposure to GDB with some more debugging of programs: digging in, poking around, and gaining knowledge. This is one of the most criti… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/1-debugging-programs https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/6-debugging-refresher/1-debugging-programs Thu, 16 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity This level gets you re-familiarised with gdb. To get started with this level, and all the other levels of this module, run /challenge/embryogdblevelXYZ, where XYZ is the level number. That program will launch gdb. Run the actual level logic with r, and follow the prompts to ge… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/30-most-common-byte https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/30-most-common-byte Wed, 15 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We will be testing your code multiple times in this level with dynamic values! This means we will be running your code in a variety of random ways to verify that the logic is robust enough to survive normal use. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/29-string-lower https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/29-string-lower Wed, 15 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We will be testing your code multiple times in this level with dynamic values! This means we will be running your code in a variety of random ways to verify that the logic is robust enough to survive normal use. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/28-count-non-zero https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/28-count-non-zero Mon, 13 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this level, you will be working with control flow manipulation. This involves using instructions to both indirectly and directly control the special register rip, the instruction pointer. You will use instructions such as jmp, call, cmp, and their alternatives to implement … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/27-average-loop https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/27-average-loop Mon, 13 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We will now set some values in memory dynamically before each run. On each run, the values will change. This means you will need to perform some type of formulaic operation with registers. We will tell you which registers are set beforehand and where you should put the result.… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/26-indirect-jump https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/26-indirect-jump Sun, 12 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this level, you will work with control flow manipulation. This involves using instructions to indirectly and directly control the special register rip, the instruction pointer. You will use instructions such as jmp, call, cmp, and their alternatives to implement the request… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/25-conditional-jump https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/25-conditional-jump Sat, 11 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this level, you will be working with control flow manipulation. This involves using instructions to both indirectly and directly control the special register rip, the instruction pointer. You will use instructions such as jmp, call, cmp, and their alternatives to implement … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/24-jump-trampoline https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/24-jump-trampoline Wed, 08 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We will now set some values in memory dynamically before each run. On each run, the values will change. This means you will need to do some type of formulaic operation with registers. We will tell you which registers are set beforehand and where you should put the result. In m… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/23-relative-jump https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/23-relative-jump Tue, 07 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We will now set some values in memory dynamically before each run. On each run, the values will change. This means you will need to perform some type of formulaic operation with registers. We will tell you which registers are set beforehand and where you should put the result.… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/22-absolute-jump https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/22-absolute-jump Mon, 06 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We will now set some values in memory dynamically before each run. On each run, the values will change. This means you will need to do some type of formulaic operation with registers. We will tell you which registers are set beforehand and where you should put the result. In m… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/21-average-stack-values https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/21-average-stack-values Mon, 06 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We will now set some values in memory dynamically before each run. On each run, the values will change. This means you will need to do some type of formulaic operation with registers. We will tell you which registers are set beforehand and where you should put the result. In m… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/20-swap-stack-values https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/20-swap-stack-values Mon, 06 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We will now set some values in memory dynamically before each run. On each run the values will change. This means you will need to do some type of formulaic operation with registers. We will tell you which registers are set beforehand and where you should put the result. In mo… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/20-stack-substraction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/20-stack-substraction Sun, 05 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We will now set some values in memory dynamically before each run. On each run, the values will change. This means you will need to do some type of formulaic operation with registers. We will tell you which registers are set beforehand and where you should put the result. In m… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/19-memory-sum https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/19-memory-sum Sun, 05 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We will now set some values in memory dynamically before each run. On each run, the values will change. This means you will need to perform some type of formulaic operation with registers. We will tell you which registers are set beforehand and where you should put the result.… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/18-little-endian-write https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/18-little-endian-write Sun, 05 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We will now set some values in memory dynamically before each run. On each run, the values will change. This means you will need to do some type of formulaic operation with registers. We will tell you which registers are set beforehand and where you should put the result. In m… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/17-memory-size-access https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/17-memory-size-access Thu, 02 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We will now set some values in memory dynamically before each run. On each run, the values will change. This means you will need to perform some type of formulaic operation with registers. We will tell you which registers are set beforehand and where you should put the result.… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/16-byte-access https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/16-byte-access Wed, 01 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We will now set some values in memory dynamically before each run. On each run, the values will change. This means you will need to do some type of formulaic operation with registers. We will tell you which registers are set beforehand and where you should put the result. In m… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/15-memory-increment https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/15-memory-increment Tue, 30 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We will now set some values in memory dynamically before each run. On each run, the values will change. This means you will need to do some type of formulaic operation with registers. We will tell you which registers are set beforehand and where you should put the result. In m… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/14-memory-write https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/14-memory-write Tue, 30 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We will now set some values in memory dynamically before each run. On each run, the values will change. This means you will need to do some type of formulaic operation with registers. We will tell you which registers are set beforehand and where you should put the result. In m… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/13-memory-read https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/13-memory-read Tue, 30 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We will now set some values in memory dynamically before each run. On each run, the values will change. This means you will need to do some type of formulaic operation with registers. We will tell you which registers are set beforehand and where you should put the result. In m… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/12-check-even https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/12-check-even Mon, 29 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this level, you will be working with registers. You will be asked to modify or read from registers. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/11-bitwise-and https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/11-bitwise-and Sun, 28 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this level, you will be working with registers. You will be asked to modify or read from registers. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/10-byte-extraction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/10-byte-extraction Sun, 28 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this level, you will be working with registers. You will be asked to modify or read from registers. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/9-efficient-modulo https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/9-efficient-modulo Sun, 28 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this level, you will be working with registers. You will be asked to modify or read from registers. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/7-modulo-operation https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/7-modulo-operation Sun, 28 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this level, you will be working with registers. You will be asked to modify or read from registers. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/6-integer-division https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/6-integer-division Sun, 28 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this level, you will be working with registers. You will be asked to modify or read from registers. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/8-set-upper-byte https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/8-set-upper-byte Sat, 27 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this level, you will be working with registers. You will be asked to modify or read from registers. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/5-linear-equation-registers https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/5-linear-equation-registers Wed, 24 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this level, you will be working with registers. You will be asked to modify or read from registers. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/4-add-to-register https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/4-add-to-register Wed, 24 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this level, you will be working with registers. You will be asked to modify or read from registers. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/3-set-multiple-registers https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/3-set-multiple-registers Wed, 24 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this level, you will be working with registers. You will be asked to modify or read from registers. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/2-set-register https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/2-set-register Wed, 24 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this level, you will be working with registers. You will be asked to modify or read from registers. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/4-hello-hackers/5-reading-data https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/4-hello-hackers/5-reading-data Wed, 24 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You now know how to output data to stdout using write. But how does your program receive input data? It reads it from stdin! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/5-assembly-crash-course/1-introduction Tue, 23 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Now that you have the hang of very basic assembly, let's dive in and explore a few different instructions and some additional concepts! The Assembly Crash Course is a romp through a lot of different things you can do in assembly, and will prepare you for the adventures to come! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/4-hello-hackers/4-writing-strings https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/4-hello-hackers/4-writing-strings Tue, 23 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Okay, we have one thing left for this run of challenges. You've written out a single byte, and now we'll practice writing out multiple bytes. I've stored a 14-character secret string at memory location 1337000. Can you write it out? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/4-hello-hackers/3-chaining-syscalls https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/4-hello-hackers/3-chaining-syscalls Tue, 23 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Okay, our previous solution wrote output but then crashed. In this level, you will write output, and then not crash! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/4-hello-hackers/2-writing-output https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/4-hello-hackers/2-writing-output Tue, 23 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Let's learn to write text! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/4-hello-hackers/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/4-hello-hackers/1-introduction Tue, 23 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Until now, your program's single interaction with the wider world was changing its exit code when exiting. Of course, more interaction is possible! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/8-triple-deference https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/8-triple-deference Mon, 22 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Okay, let's stretch that to one more depth! We've added an additional level of indirection in this challenge, so now you'll need three dereferences to find the secret value. Something like this: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/7-double-dereference https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/7-double-dereference Sun, 21 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In the last few levels, you have: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/6-stored-addresses https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/6-stored-addresses Sat, 20 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Pointers can get even more interesting! Imagine that your friend lives in a different house on your street. Rather than remembering their address, you might write it down, and store the paper with their house address in your house. Then, to get data from your friend, you'd nee… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/5-dereferencing-with-offsets https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/5-dereferencing-with-offsets Sat, 20 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity So now you can dereference pointers in memory like a pro! But pointers don't always point directly at the data you need. Sometimes, for example, a pointer might point to a collection of data (say, an entire book), and you'll need to reference partway into this collection for t… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/4-dereferencing-yourself https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/4-dereferencing-yourself Sat, 20 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In the previous level, you dereferenced rax to read data into rdi. The interesting thing here is that our choice of rax was pretty arbitrary. We could have used any other pointer, even rdi itself! Nothing stops you from dereferencing a register to overwrite its own content wit… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/3-dereferencing-pointers https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/3-dereferencing-pointers Sat, 20 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Did you prefer to access memory at 133700 or at 123400? Your answer might say something about your personality, but it's not super relevant from a technical perspective. In fact, in most cases, you don't deal with actual memory addresses when writing programs at all! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/2-more-loading-practice https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/2-more-loading-practice Sat, 20 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You look like you need just a tiny bit more practice. In this level, we put the secret value at 123400 instead of 133700, as so: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/1-loading-from-memory https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/1-loading-from-memory Sat, 20 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity As seen by your program, computer memory is a huge place where data is housed. Like houses on a street, every part of memory has a numeric address, and like houses on a street, these numbers are (mostly) sequential. Modern computers have enormous amounts of memory, and the vie… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/0-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/3-computer-memory/0-introduction Fri, 19 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Wow, you are a budding x86 assembly programmer! You've set registers, triggered system calls, and wrote your first program that cleanly exits. Now, we have one more big concept for you: memory. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/2-software-introseption/3-starting-programs-in-gdb https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/2-software-introseption/3-starting-programs-in-gdb Fri, 19 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Debuggers, including gdb, observe the debugged program as it runs to expose information about its runtime behaviour. In the previous level, we automatically launched the program for you. Here, we will tone down the magic somewhat: you must start the execution of the program, a… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/2-software-introseption/2-starting-gdb https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/2-software-introseption/2-starting-gdb Fri, 19 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Next, let's move on to GDB. GDB stands for the GNU Debugger, and it is Typically used to hunt down and understand bugs. More specifically, a debugger is a tool that enables the close monitoring and introspection of another process. There are many famous debuggers, and in the L… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/2-software-introseption/1-tracing-syscalls https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/2-software-introseption/1-tracing-syscalls Fri, 19 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The first one is pretty simple: the syscall tracer, strace. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/2-software-introseption/0-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/2-software-introseption/0-introduction Fri, 19 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity As you write larger and larger programs, you (yes, even you!) might make mistakes when implementing certain functionality, introducing bugs into your programs. When this happens, you'll need to have a reliable toolbox of resources to understand what is going wrong and fix it. … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/1-assembly/6-moving-between-registers https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/1-assembly/6-moving-between-registers Fri, 19 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Okay, let's learn about one more register: rsi! Like rdi, rsi is a place you can park some data. For example: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/1-assembly/5-building-executables https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/1-assembly/5-building-executables Fri, 19 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity So you've written your first program? But until now, we've handled the actual building of it into an executable that your CPU can actually run. In this challenge, you will build it! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/1-assembly/4-exit-codes https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/1-assembly/4-exit-codes Fri, 19 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity As you might know, every program exits with an exit code as it terminates. This is done by passing a parameter to the exit system call. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/1-assembly/3-your-first-syscall https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/1-assembly/3-your-first-syscall Fri, 19 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity So, your first program crashed... Don't worry, it happens! In this challenge, you'll learn how to make your program cleanly exit instead of crashing. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/1-assembly/2-your-first-register https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/1-assembly/2-your-first-register Fri, 19 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The CPU thinks in very simple terms. It moves data around, changes data, makes decisions based on data, and takes action based on data. Most of the time, this data is stored in registers. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/8-building-programs https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/8-building-programs Fri, 19 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/1-assembly/1-your-first-program https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/1-assembly/1-your-first-program Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Computers run computer programs to achieve different goals. One program might be your favourite video game, another is the web browser you're using to access this website, and so on. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/7-environment-interaction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/7-environment-interaction Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/6-control-flow https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/6-control-flow Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/5-memory https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/5-memory Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/4-registers https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/4-registers Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/3-data https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/3-data Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity - This gate outputs "on" (1) only when both inputs A and B are "on" (1). https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/2-assembly https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/2-assembly Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/1-computer-architecture https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-4/0-lectures/1-computer-architecture Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/12-daring-destructions/5-finding-mean-after-rm-rf https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/12-daring-destructions/5-finding-mean-after-rm-rf Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity So you can live without cat! How about without ls? This time, /challenge/check will restore the flag to a randomly-named file. You'll need to find it without reaching for your ls command. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/12-daring-destructions/4-life-after-rm-rf-slash https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/12-daring-destructions/4-life-after-rm-rf-slash Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Let's dig into the effects of blowing away your whole filesystem. You're now an experienced rmer, but previously, /challenge/check printed the flag out for you when you cleared away the clutter of the filesystem. What if it hadn't? Without cat, how would you read that /flag? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/12-daring-destructions/3-rm-rf https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/12-daring-destructions/3-rm-rf Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Want to wipe the slate clean and start over? You can! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/12-daring-destructions/2-disk-space-doomsday https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/12-daring-destructions/2-disk-space-doomsday Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The available space in /home/hacker in this container is a measly 1 gigabyte. In this level you will clog up /home/hacker with so much junk that even a tiny 1 megabyte file can't be created. When this happens, your workspace becomes unusable. We'll practice inducing this in th… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/12-daring-destructions/1-fork-bomb https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/12-daring-destructions/1-fork-bomb Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity As you learned in the Processes and Jobs module, whenever you start a program the Linux operating system creates a new process. If you create processes faster than the kernel can handle, the process table fills up and everything grinds to a halt. This new process (e.g., of an … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/12-daring-destructions/0-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/12-daring-destructions/0-introduction Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Over the course of the Luminarium, you have learned how to navigate, manipulate, and control a Linux machine. Before we send you off into the wild it, is only fair that we end with some words of caution—and a little mayhem. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/11-silly-shenanigans/12-snooping-on-configurations https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/11-silly-shenanigans/12-snooping-on-configurations Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Even without making mistakes, users might inadvertently leave themselves at risk. For example, many files in a typical user's home directory are world-readable by default, despite frequently being used to store sensitive information. Believe it or not, your .bashrc is world-re… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/11-silly-shenanigans/5-sniffing-process-arguments https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/11-silly-shenanigans/5-sniffing-process-arguments Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Poor Zardus; you've hacked him pretty heavily. But he's wisened up and secured his home directory! Game over? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/11-silly-shenanigans/4-tricky-linking https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/11-silly-shenanigans/4-tricky-linking Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Okay, Zardus has wised up! No more sharing the home directory: despite the reduced convenience, Zardus has moved to sharing /tmp/collab. He's made that directory world-readable and has started a list of evil commands to remember! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/13-reading-shell-scripts https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/13-reading-shell-scripts Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You're not the only one who writes shell scripts! They are very handy for doing simple "system-level" tasks, and are a common tool that developers and sysadmins reach for. In fact, a surprising fraction of the programs on a typical Linux machine are shell scripts. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/11-silly-shenanigans/3-overshared-directories https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/11-silly-shenanigans/3-overshared-directories Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Alright, Zardus has wised up --- why would he have a writable .bashrc, anyways? But a more common scenario is that users on the same system, to make it easier to collaborate, will make their home directories world writable. What's the problem here? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/11-silly-shenanigans/2-sniffing-input https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/11-silly-shenanigans/2-sniffing-input Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In the previous level, you abused Zardus's ~/.bashrc to make him run commands for you. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/11-silly-shenanigans/1-bashrc-backdoor https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/11-silly-shenanigans/1-bashrc-backdoor Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity When your shell starts up, it looks for .bashrc file in your home directory and executes it as a startup script. You can customize your /home/hacker/.bashrc with useful things, such as setting environment variables, tweaking your shell configuration, and so on. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/10-pondering-path/5-hijacking-commands https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/10-pondering-path/5-hijacking-commands Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Armed with your knowledge, you can now carry out some shenanigans. This challenge is almost the same as the first challenge in this module. Again, this challenge will delete the flag using the rm command. But unlike before, it will not print anything out for you. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/10-pondering-path/4-adding-commands https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/10-pondering-path/4-adding-commands Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Recall our example from the previous level: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/10-pondering-path/3-finding-paths https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/10-pondering-path/3-finding-paths Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity When you type the name of a command, something inside one of the many directories listed in your $PATH variable is what actually gets executed (of course, unless the command is a builtin!). But which file, precisely? You can find out with the aptly-named which command: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/10-pondering-path/2-setting-path https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/10-pondering-path/2-setting-path Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Okay, so things break when you blank out PATH. But what about doing something useful with PATH? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/10-pondering-path/1-the-path-variable https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/10-pondering-path/1-the-path-variable Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity It turns out that the answer to "How does the shell find ls?" is fairly simple. There is a special shell variable, called PATH, that stores a bunch of directory paths in which the shell will search for programs corresponding to commands. If you blank out the variable, things g… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/10-pondering-path/0-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/10-pondering-path/0-introduction Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Thus far, you have invoked commands in several ways: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/9-terminal-multiplexing/6-switching-windows-tmux https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/9-terminal-multiplexing/6-switching-windows-tmux Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity t's learn to navigate windows in tmux! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/9-terminal-multiplexing/5-detaching-and-attaching-tmux https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/9-terminal-multiplexing/5-detaching-and-attaching-tmux Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Let's try the same thing with tmux! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/9-terminal-multiplexing/4-switching-windows https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/9-terminal-multiplexing/4-switching-windows Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Okay, so far, screen is just a weird sort of terminal-with-a-terminal. But it can be much more! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/9-terminal-multiplexing/3-finding-sessions https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/9-terminal-multiplexing/3-finding-sessions Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Time for some screen detective work! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/9-terminal-multiplexing/2-detaching-and-attaching https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/9-terminal-multiplexing/2-detaching-and-attaching Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Now we'll start digging in with the magic of detaching! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/9-terminal-multiplexing/1-launching-screen https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/9-terminal-multiplexing/1-launching-screen Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Let's dive right in! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/12-scripting-with-multiple-conditions https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/12-scripting-with-multiple-conditions Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You've learned how to use a single if statement to check a condition. But what if you need to check multiple conditions? You can use elif (short for else if): https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/11-scripting-with-default-cases https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/11-scripting-with-default-cases Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Your if statements so far have handled specific cases, but what about everything else? That's where else comes in! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/10-scripting-with-conditionals https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/10-scripting-with-conditionals Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Now that you can use arguments in scripts, let's make them smarter with conditional logic! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/9-scripting-with-arguments https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/9-scripting-with-arguments Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You've learned how to make shell scripts, but so far they've just been lists of commands. Scripts become much more powerful when they can accept arguments! This might look like: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/8-understanding-shebangs https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/8-understanding-shebangs Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You're well on your way to your new life as a shell scripter! However, so far, your shellscripts can only be launched from the shell. Things worked great in the previous level (because you were invoking your script from the bash shell), but they won't work if your script was b… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/7-executable-shell-scripts https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/7-executable-shell-scripts Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You have written your first shell script, but calling it via bash script.sh is a pain. Why do you need that bash? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/6-redirecting-script-output https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/6-redirecting-script-output Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Let's try something a bit trickier! You've piped output between programs with |, but so far, this has just been between one command's output and a different command's input. But what if you wanted to send the output of several programs to one command? There are a few ways to d… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/5-your-first-shell-script https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/5-your-first-shell-script Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity As you combine more and more commands to achieve complex effects, the length of the combined prompt quickly gets really annoying to deal with. When this happens, you can put these commands in a file, called a shell script, and run them by executing the file! For example, consi… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/4-handling-failure https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/4-handling-failure Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You just learned about the && operator, which runs the second command only if the first succeeds. Now let's learn about its opposite: the || operator allows you to run a second command only if the first command fails (exits with a non-zero code). This is called the "OR" operat… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/3-building-on-success https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/3-building-on-success Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You learned about exit codes in the Processes module. Now let's use them to chain commands together! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/2-chaining-with-semicolons https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/2-chaining-with-semicolons Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The easiest way to chain commands is ;. In most contexts, ; separates commands in a similar way to how Enter separates lines. So, this: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/8-chaining-commands/1-introduction Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In the piping module, you've explored the concept of using several commands, with data flowing between them via pipes, to accomplish something slightly more complex than the individual commands can do. Of course, this concept also applies independent of the data transfer: some… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/7-perceiving-permissions/7-the-suid-bit https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/7-perceiving-permissions/7-the-suid-bit Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity As you explored in the previous module, there are many cases in which non-root users need elevated access to do certain system tasks. The system admin can't be there to give them the password every time a user wanted to do a task that only root/sudoers can do. Instead, the "Se… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/7-perceiving-permissions/6-permissions-setting-practice https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/7-perceiving-permissions/6-permissions-setting-practice Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In addition to adding and removing permissions, as in the previous level, chmod can also simply set permissions altogether, overwriting the old ones. This is done by using = instead of - or +. For example: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/7-perceiving-permissions/5-permission-tweaking-practice https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/7-perceiving-permissions/5-permission-tweaking-practice Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You think you can chmod? Let's practice! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/7-perceiving-permissions/4-executable-files https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/7-perceiving-permissions/4-executable-files Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity So far, you have mostly been dealing with read permissions. This makes sense, because you have been making the /flag file readable to read it. In this level, we will explore execute permissions. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/7-perceiving-permissions/4-changing-permissions https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/7-perceiving-permissions/4-changing-permissions Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity So now we're well-versed in ownership. Let's talk about the other side of the coin: file permissions. Recall our example: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/7-perceiving-permissions/3-fun-with-group-names https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/7-perceiving-permissions/3-fun-with-group-names Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In the previous levels, you may have noticed that your hacker user is a member of the hacker group, and that zardus is a member of the zardus group. There is a convention in Linux that every user has their own group, but this does not have to be the case. For example, many com… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/7-perceiving-permissions/2-groups-and-files https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/7-perceiving-permissions/2-groups-and-files Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Sharing is caring, and sharing is built into Linux's design. Files have both an owning user and group. A group can have multiple users in it, and a user can be a member of multiple groups. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/7-perceiving-permissions/1-changing-file-ownership https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/7-perceiving-permissions/1-changing-file-ownership Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity First things first: file ownership. Every file in Linux is owned by a user on the system. Most often, in your day-to-day life, that user is the user you log in as every day. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/6-untangling-users/5-using-sudo https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/6-untangling-users/5-using-sudo Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In the olden days, a typical Linux system had a root password that administrators would use to su to root (after logging into their account with their normal account password). But root passwords are a pain to maintain, they (or their hashes!) can leak, and they don't lend the… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/6-untangling-users/4-cracking-passwords https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/6-untangling-users/4-cracking-passwords Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity When you enter a password for su, it compares it against the stored password for that user. These passwords used to be stored in /etc/passwd, but because /etc/passwd is a globally-readable file, this is not good for passwords, these were moved to /etc/shadow. Here is the examp… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/6-untangling-users/3-other-users-with-su https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/6-untangling-users/3-other-users-with-su Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity With no arguments, su will start a root shell (after authenticating with root's password). However, you can also give a username as an argument to switch to that user instead of root. For example: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/6-untangling-users/2-becoming-root-with-su https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/6-untangling-users/2-becoming-root-with-su Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity It's not just hackers that need to become root. Oftentimes, you, as the owner of your computer, need to use root access to administer it. Becoming root is a fairly common action that Linux users take, and there are two utilities that exist for this purpose: su and sudo. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/6-untangling-users/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/6-untangling-users/1-introduction Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Did you think you, hacker, are alone in the workspace? There are MANY users on a typical Linux system! The full list of users on a Linux system is specified in the /etc/passwd file (named so for historical reasons --- it doesn't actually hold passwords anymore). Here is an exa… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/11-process-exit-codes https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/11-process-exit-codes Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Every shell command, including every program and every builtin, exits with an exit code when it finishes running and terminates. This can be used by the shell, or the user of the shell (that's you!) to check if the process succeeded in its functionality (this determination, of… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/10-starting-backgrounded-processes https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/10-starting-backgrounded-processes Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Of course, you don't have to suspend processes to background them: you can start them backgrounded right off the bat! It's easy; all you have to do is append a & to the command, like so: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/9-foregrounding-processes https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/9-foregrounding-processes Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Imagine that you have a backgrounded process, and you want to mess with it some more. What do you do? Well, you can foreground a backgrounded process with fg just like you foreground a suspended process! This level will walk you through that! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/8-backgrounding-processes https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/8-backgrounding-processes Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You've resumed processes in the foreground with the fg command. You can also resume processes in the background with the bg command! This will allow the process to keep running, while giving you your shell back to invoke more commands in the meantime. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/7-resuming-processes https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/7-resuming-processes Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Usually, when you suspend processes, you'll want to resume them at some point. Otherwise, why not just terminate them? To resume processes, your shell provides the fg command, a builtin that takes the suspended process, resumes it, and puts it back in the foreground of your te… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/6-suspending-processes https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/6-suspending-processes Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You have learned to interrupt processes with Ctrl-C, but there are less drastic measures you can use to get your terminal back! You can suspend processes to the background with Ctrl-Z. In this level, we'll explore how this works and, in the next level, we'll figure out how to … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/5-killing-misbehaving-processes https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/5-killing-misbehaving-processes Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Sometimes, misbehaving processes can interfere with your work. These processes might need to be killed... https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/4-interrupting-processes https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/4-interrupting-processes Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You've learned how to kill other processes with the kill command, but sometimes you just want to get rid of the process that's clogging up your terminal! Luckily, terminals have a hotkey for this: Ctrl-C (e.g., holding down the Ctrl key and pressing C) sends an "interrupt" to … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/3-killing-processes https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/3-killing-processes Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You've launched processes, you've viewed processes, now you will learn to terminate processes! In Linux, this is done using the aggressively-named kill command. With default options (which is all we'll cover in this level), kill will terminate a process in a way that gives it … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/2-listing-processes https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/2-listing-processes Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity First, we will learn to list running processes using the ps command. Depending on whom you ask, ps either stands for "process snapshot" or "process status", and it lists processes. By default, ps just lists the processes running in your terminal, which honestly isn't very useful: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/5-processes-and-jobs/1-introduction Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Computers execute software to get stuff done. In modern computing, this software is split into two categories: operating system kernels (about which we will learn much later) and processes, which we will discuss here. When Linux starts up, it launches an init (short for initia… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/4-data-manipulation/6-extracting-specific-sections-of-text https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/4-data-manipulation/6-extracting-specific-sections-of-text Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Sometimes, you want to grab specific columns of data, such as the first column, the third column, or the 42nd column. For this, there's the cut command. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/4-data-manipulation/5-sorting-data https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/4-data-manipulation/5-sorting-data Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Files (or output lines of commands) aren't always in the order you need them! The sort command helps you organize data. It reads lines from input (or files) and outputs them in sorted order: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/4-data-manipulation/5-extracting-the-first-lines-with-head https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/4-data-manipulation/5-extracting-the-first-lines-with-head Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In your Linux journey, you'll experience situations where you need to grab just the early output of very verbose programs. For this, you'll reach for head! The head command is used to display the first few lines of its input: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/4-data-manipulation/4-deleting-newlines https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/4-data-manipulation/4-deleting-newlines Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity A common class of characters to remove is a line separator. This happens when you have a stream of data that you want to turn into a single line for further processing. You can specify newlines almost like any other character, by escaping them: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/4-data-manipulation/3-deleting-characters https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/4-data-manipulation/3-deleting-characters Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity tr can also translate characters to nothing (i.e., delete them). This is done via a -d flag and an argument of what characters to delete: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/4-data-manipulation/2-translating-characters https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/4-data-manipulation/2-translating-characters Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity One of the purposes of piping data is to modify it. Many Linux commands will help you modify data in really cool ways. One of these is tr, which translates characters it receives over standard input and prints them to standard output. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/4-data-manipulation/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/4-data-manipulation/1-introduction Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You've learned to pipe data, specify input, and so on. Let's start putting things together! In this module, you'll learn a number of commands for manipulating data that will help you achieve great results on the shell. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/9-reading-files https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/9-reading-files Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Often, when shell users want to read a file into an environment variable, they do something like: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/8-reading-input https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/8-reading-input Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We'll start with reading input from the user (you). That's done using the aptly named read builtin, which reads input into a variable! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/7-storing-command-output https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/7-storing-command-output Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In the course of working with the shell, you will often want to store the output of some command into a variable. Luckily, the shell makes this quite easy using something called Command Substitution! Observe: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/6-printing-exported-values https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/6-printing-exported-values Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity There are multiple ways to access variables in bash. echo was just one of them, and we'll now learn at least one more in this challenge. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/5-exporting-variables https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/5-exporting-variables Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity By default, variables that you set in a shell session are local to that shell process. That is, other commands you run won't inherit them. You can experiment with this by simply invoking another shell process in your own shell, like so: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/4-multi-word-variables https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/4-multi-word-variables Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this level, you will learn about quoting. Spaces have special significance in the shell, and there are places where you can't use them spuriously. Recall our variable setting: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/3-setting-variables https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/3-setting-variables Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Naturally, as well as reading values stored in variables, you can write values to variables. This is done, as with many other languages, using =. To set variable VAR to value 1337, you would use: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/2-printing-variables https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/2-printing-variables Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Let's start with printing variables out. The /challenge/run program will not, and cannot, give you the flag, but that's okay, because the flag has been put into the variable called "FLAG"! Just have your shell print it out! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/3-shell-variables/1-introduction Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The Linux command line interface is actually a sophisticated programming language with which you can write actual programs! Because the command line interface is colloquially referred to as a "shell", programs written in this language are referred to as "shell scripts". When y… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/15-named-pipes https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/15-named-pipes Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You've learned about pipes using |, and you've seen that process substitution creates temporary named pipes (like /dev/fd/63). You can also create your own persistent named pipes that stick around on the file system! These are called FIFOs, which stands for First (byte) In, Fi… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/14-split-piping-stderr-and-stdout https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/14-split-piping-stderr-and-stdout Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Now, let's put your knowledge together. You must master the ultimate piping task: redirect stdout to one program and stderr to another. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/13-writing-to-multiple-programs https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/13-writing-to-multiple-programs Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Now you've learned that process substitution can make command output appear as files for reading with <(command). But you can also use process substitution for writing to commands! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/12-process-substitution-for-input https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/12-process-substitution-for-input Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Sometimes you need to compare the output of two commands rather than two files. You might think to save each output to a file first: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/11-duplicating-piped-data-with-tee https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/11-duplicating-piped-data-with-tee Sun, 14 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity When you pipe data from one command to another, you of course no longer see it on your screen. This is not always desired: for example, you might want to see the data as it flows through between your commands to debug unintended outcomes (e.g., "why did that second command not… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/10-filtering-with-grep-v https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/10-filtering-with-grep-v Fri, 12 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The grep command has a very useful option: -v (invert match). While normal grep shows lines that MATCH a pattern, grep -v shows lines that do NOT match a pattern: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/9-grepping-errors https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/9-grepping-errors Fri, 12 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You know how to redirect errors to a file, and you know how to pipe output to another program, such as grep. But what if you wanted to grep through errors directly? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/8-grepping-live-output https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/8-grepping-live-output Fri, 12 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity It turns out that you can "cut out the middleman" and avoid the need to store results to a file, like you did in the last level. You can do this by using the | (pipe) operator. Standard output from the command to the left of the pipe will be connected to (piped into) the stand… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/7-grepping-stored-results https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/7-grepping-stored-results Fri, 12 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You know how to run commands, how to redirect their output (e.g., ), and how to search through the resulting file (e.g., grep). Let's put this together! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/6-redirecting-inputs https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/6-redirecting-inputs Fri, 12 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Just like you can redirect output from programs, you can redirect input to programs! This is done using <, as so: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/5-redirecting-errors https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/5-redirecting-errors Fri, 12 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Just like standard output, you can also redirect the error channel of commands. Here, we'll learn about File Descriptor numbers. A File Descriptor (FD) is a number that describes a communication channel in Linux. You've already been using them, even though you didn't realize i… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/4-appending-output https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/4-appending-output Fri, 12 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity A common use-case of output redirection is to save off some command results for later analysis. Often times, you want to do this in aggregate: run a bunch of commands, save their output, and grep through it later. In this case, you might want all that output to keep appending … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/3-redirecting-more-output https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/3-redirecting-more-output Fri, 12 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Aside from redirecting the output of echo, you can, of course, redirect the output of any command. In this level, /challenge/run will once more give you a flag, but only if you redirect its output to the file myflag. Your flag will, of course, end up in the myflag file! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/2-redirecting-output https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/2-redirecting-output Fri, 12 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity First, let's look at redirecting stdout to files. You can accomplish this with the  character, as so: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/2-piping/1-introduction Fri, 12 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You may have observed that some commands output data onto your terminal when you run them. So far, this has printed you many flags, but like many things, the technology goes much deeper. The mechanisms behind the handling of input and output on the command line contribute to t… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/11-tab-completions-on-commands https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/11-tab-completions-on-commands Fri, 12 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity = Tab completion is for more than files! You can also tab-complete commands. This level has a command that starts with pwncollege, and it'll give you the flag. Type pwncollege and hit the tab key to auto-complete it! https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/10-multiple-options-for-tab-completion https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/10-multiple-options-for-tab-completion Fri, 12 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Consider the following situation: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/9-tab-completion https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/9-tab-completion Thu, 11 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity As tempting as it might be, using  to shorten what must be typed on the command line can lead to mistakes. Your glob might expand to unintended files, and you might not spot it until the rm command is already running! No one is safe from this style of error. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/8-exclusionary-globbing https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/8-exclusionary-globbing Thu, 11 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Sometimes, you want to filter out files in a glob! Luckily, [] helps you do just this. If the first character in the brackets is a ! or (in newer versions of bash) a ^, the glob inverts, and that bracket instance matches characters that aren't listed. For example: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/7-multiple-globs https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/7-multiple-globs Thu, 11 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity So far, you've specified one glob at a time, but you can do more! Bash supports the expansion of multiple globs in a single word. For example: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/6-mixing-globs https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/6-mixing-globs Thu, 11 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity = Now, let's put the previous levels together! We put a few happy, but diversely-named files in /challenge/files. Go cd there and, using the globbing you've learned, write a single, short (6 characters or less) glob that (when passed as an argument to /challenge/run) will matc… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/5-matching-paths-with https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/5-matching-paths-with Thu, 11 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Globbing happens on a path basis, so you can expand entire paths with your globbed arguments. For example: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/4-matching-with https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/4-matching-with Thu, 11 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Next, we will cover []. The square brackets are, essentially, a limited form of ?, in that instead of matching any character, [] is a wildcard for some subset of potential characters, specified within the brackets. For example, [pwn] will match the character p, w, or n. For ex… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/3-matching-with https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/3-matching-with Thu, 11 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Next, let's learn about ?. When it encounters a ? character in any argument, the shell will treat it as a single-character wildcard. This works like , but only matches one character. For example: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/2-matching-with https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/2-matching-with Thu, 11 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The first glob we'll learn is . When it encounters a  character in any argument, the shell will treat it as a "wildcard" and try to replace that argument with any files that match the pattern. It's easier to show you than explain: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/1-getting-started-with-it https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/pwn-college/module-1/1-globbing/1-getting-started-with-it Thu, 11 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Even just a few levels in, you might already be tired of typing out all these file paths. Luckily, the shell has a solution: globbing! That's what we'll learn in this module. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/7-gobuster-the-basics/6-use-case-virtual-host-enurmeration https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/7-gobuster-the-basics/6-use-case-virtual-host-enurmeration Sun, 24 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The last and final mode we’ll focus on is the vhost mode. This mode allows Gobuster to brute force virtual hosts. Virtual hosts are different websites on the same machine. Sometimes, they look like subdomains, but don’t be deceived! Virtual hosts are IP-based and are running o… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/7-gobuster-the-basics/5-use-case-subdomain-enumeration https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/7-gobuster-the-basics/5-use-case-subdomain-enumeration Sun, 24 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The next mode we’ll focus on is the dns mode. This mode allows Gobuster to brute force subdomains. During a penetration test,  checking the subdomains of your target’s top domain is essential. Just because something is patched in the regular domain, it doesn't mean it is also … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/7-gobuster-the-basics/4-use-case-directory-and-file-enumeration https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/7-gobuster-the-basics/4-use-case-directory-and-file-enumeration Sun, 24 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Gobuster has a dir mode, allowing users to enumerate website directories and their files. This mode is useful when you are performing a penetration test and would like to see what the directory structure of a website is and what files it contains. Often, directory structures o… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/7-gobuster-the-basics/3-gobuster-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/7-gobuster-the-basics/3-gobuster-introduction Sun, 24 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Gobuster is an open-source offensive tool written in Golang. It enumerates web directories, DNS subdomains, vhosts, Amazon S3 buckets, and Google Cloud Storage by brute force, using specific wordlists and handling the incoming responses. Many security professionals use this to… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/7-gobuster-the-basics/2-environment-and-setup https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/7-gobuster-the-basics/2-environment-and-setup Sun, 24 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity For this room, we will use an Ubuntu 20.04 VM acting as a web server. This web server hosts multiple subdomains and vhosts. The web server also has two content management systems (CMS) installed. These are Wordpress and Joomla. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/7-gobuster-the-basics/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/7-gobuster-the-basics/1-introduction Sun, 24 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity This room focuses on the offensive security tool Gobuster, often used for reconnaissance. We will explore how this tool can enumerate web directories, subdomains, and virtual hosts. This room will follow a hands-on approach where you can follow along with the commands explaine… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/6-hydra/2-using-hydra https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/6-hydra/2-using-hydra Sat, 23 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity checkout this documentation : http://en.kali.tools/?p=220 https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/6-hydra/1-introduction-to-hydra https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/6-hydra/1-introduction-to-hydra Sat, 23 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Hydra is a brute force online password cracking program, a quick system login password “hacking” tool. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/11-server-side-request-forgery-ssrf https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/11-server-side-request-forgery-ssrf Thu, 21 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity This type of vulnerability occurs when an attacker can coerce a web application into sending requests on their behalf to arbitrary destinations while having control of the contents of the request itself. SSRF vulnerabilities often arise from implementations where our web appli… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/10-security-logging-and-monitoring-failures https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/10-security-logging-and-monitoring-failures Thu, 21 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity When web applications are set up, every action performed by the user should be logged. Logging is important because, in the event of an incident, the attackers' activities can be traced. Once their actions are traced, their risk and impact can be determined. Without logging, t… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/9-software-and-data-integrity-failures https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/9-software-and-data-integrity-failures Thu, 21 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity What is Integrity? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/8-identification-and-authentication-failures https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/8-identification-and-authentication-failures Thu, 21 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Authentication and session management constitute core components of modern web applications. Authentication allows users to gain access to web applications by verifying their identities. The most common form of authentication is using a username and password mechanism. A user … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/7-vulnerable-and-outdated-components https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/7-vulnerable-and-outdated-components Thu, 21 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Occasionally, you may find that the company/entity you're pen-testing is using a program with a well-known vulnerability. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/6-security-misconfiguration https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/6-security-misconfiguration Wed, 20 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Security Misconfigurations are distinct from the other Top 10 vulnerabilities because they occur when security could have been appropriately configured but was not. Even if you download the latest up-to-date software, poor configurations could make your installation vulnerable. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/5-insecure-design https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/5-insecure-design Wed, 20 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Insecure design refers to vulnerabilities which are inherent to the application's architecture. They are not vulnerabilities regarding bad implementations or configurations, but the idea behind the whole application (or a part of it) is flawed from the start. Most of the time,… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/4-injections https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/4-injections Tue, 19 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Injection flaws are very common in applications today. These flaws occur because the application interprets user-controlled input as commands or parameters. Injection attacks depend on what technologies are used and how these technologies interpret the input. Some common examp… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/3-cryptographic-failures https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/3-cryptographic-failures Tue, 19 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity A cryptographic failure refers to any vulnerability arising from the misuse (or lack of use) of cryptographic algorithms for protecting sensitive information. Web applications require cryptography to provide confidentiality for their users at many levels. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/2-broken-access-controls https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/2-broken-access-controls Tue, 19 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Websites have pages that are protected from regular visitors. For example, only the site's admin user should be able to access a page to manage other users. If a website visitor can access protected pages they are not meant to see, then the access controls are broken. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/owasp-top-10/1-introduction Tue, 19 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity This room breaks each OWASP topic down and includes details on the vulnerabilities, how they occur, and how you can exploit them. You will put the theory into practice by completing supporting challenges. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/13-example-attack https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/13-example-attack Sun, 17 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Having looked at how to set up and configure our proxy, let's go through a simplified real-world example. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/12-proxying-https https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/12-proxying-https Sun, 17 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Note: The AttackBox is already configured to solve the problem posed in this task. If you use the AttackBox and don't wish to read through the information here, you can skip to the next task. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/11-scoping-targeting https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/11-scoping-targeting Sun, 17 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Finally, we come to one of the most important aspects of using the Burp Proxy: Scoping. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/10-burpsuite-browser https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/10-burpsuite-browser Sun, 17 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity If the previous tasks seemed overly complex, rest assured, this topic will be a lot simpler. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/9-sitemap-and-issue-definitions https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/9-sitemap-and-issue-definitions Sun, 17 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The Target tab in Burp Suite provides more than just control over the scope of our testing. It consists of three sub-tabs: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/8-connecting-through-the-proxy-foxyproxy https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/8-connecting-through-the-proxy-foxyproxy Sun, 17 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity To use the Burp Suite Proxy, we need to configure our local web browser to redirect traffic through Burp Suite. In this task, we will focus on configuring the proxy using the FoxyProxy extension in Firefox. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/7-intro-to-burp-proxy https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/7-intro-to-burp-proxy Sun, 17 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The Burp Proxy is a fundamental and crucial tool within Burp Suite. It enables the capture of requests and responses between the user and the target web server. This intercepted traffic can be manipulated, sent to other tools for further processing, or explicitly allowed to co… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/6-options https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/6-options Sun, 17 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Before diving into the Burp Proxy, let's explore the available options for configuring Burp Suite. There are two types of settings: Global settings (also known as User settings) and Project settings. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/5-navigation https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/5-navigation Sun, 17 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In Burp Suite, the default navigation is primarily done through the top menu bars, which allow you to switch between modules and access various sub-tabs within each module. The sub-tabs appear in a second menu bar directly below the main menu bar. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/4-dashboard https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/4-dashboard Sun, 17 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You may use the pre-installed Burp Suite Community Edition in our AttackBox. To launch the AttackBox, click the Start AttackBox button at the top of this page. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/3-features-of-burp-community https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/3-features-of-burp-community Sun, 17 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Although Burp Suite Community offers a more limited feature set compared to the Professional edition, it still provides an impressive array of tools that are highly valuable for web application testing. Let's explore some of the key features: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/3-intro-to-sql/8-functions https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/3-intro-to-sql/8-functions Sat, 16 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity When working with Data, functions can help us streamline queries and operations and manipulate data. Let's explore some of these functions next. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/3-intro-to-sql/7-operators https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/3-intro-to-sql/7-operators Sat, 16 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity When working with SQL and dealing with logic and comparisons, operators are our way to filter and manipulate data effectively. Understanding these operators will help us to create more precise and powerful queries.  In the next two tasks, we will be using the books table that … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/3-intro-to-sql/6-clauses https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/3-intro-to-sql/6-clauses Sat, 16 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity A clause is a part of a statement that specifies the criteria of the data being manipulated, usually by an initial statement. Clauses can help us define the type of data and how it should be retrieved or sorted. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/3-intro-to-sql/5-crud-operations https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/3-intro-to-sql/5-crud-operations Sat, 16 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity CRUD stands for Create, Read, Update, and Delete, which are considered the basic operations in any system that manages data. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/3-intro-to-sql/4-database-and-table-statements https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/3-intro-to-sql/4-database-and-table-statements Sat, 16 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity If a new database is needed, the first step you would take is to create it. This can be done in SQL using the CREATE DATABASE statement. This would be done using the following syntax: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/3-intro-to-sql/3-sql-structured-query-language https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/3-intro-to-sql/3-sql-structured-query-language Sat, 16 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Now, all of this theoretically sounds great, but in practice, how do databases work? How would you go and make your first table and populate it with data? What would you use? Databases are usually controlled using a Database Management System (DBMS). Serving as an interface be… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/3-intro-to-sql/2-database-101 https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/3-intro-to-sql/2-database-101 Sat, 16 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Okay, so you’ve been told just how important they are. Now, it's time to understand what they are in the first place. As mentioned in the introduction, databases are so ubiquitous that you very likely interact with systems that are using them. Databases are an organised collec… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/3-intro-to-sql/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/3-intro-to-sql/1-introduction Sat, 16 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Cyber security is a broad topic that covers a wide range of subjects, but few of those are as ubiquitous as databases. Whether you’re working on securing a web application, working in a SOC and using a SIEM, configuring user authentication/access control, or using malware anal… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/2-javascript/7-best-practices https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/2-javascript/7-best-practices Sat, 16 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity This task outlines the best practices for evaluating a website or writing code for a website. If you are developing a web application, you will likely end up using JS on your website. The practices below will assist you in reducing the attack surface and minimizing the chances… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/2-javascript/6-exploring-minified-files https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/2-javascript/6-exploring-minified-files Sat, 16 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We have understood how JS works and how we can read it until now, but what if the file is not human-readable and has been minified? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/2-javascript/5-bypassing-control-flow-statements https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/2-javascript/5-bypassing-control-flow-statements Sat, 16 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Control flow in JS refers to the order in which statements and code blocks are executed based on certain conditions. JS provides several control flow structures such as if-else, switch statements to make decisions, and loops like for, while, and do...while to repeat actions. P… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/2-javascript/4-abusing-dialogue-functions https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/2-javascript/4-abusing-dialogue-functions Sat, 16 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity One of the main objectives of JS is to provide dialogue boxes for interaction with users and dynamically update content on web pages. JS provides built-in functions like alert, prompt, and confirm to facilitate this interaction. These functions allow developers to display mess… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/2-what-is-burpsuite https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/2-what-is-burpsuite Sat, 16 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In essence, Burp Suite is a Java-based framework designed to serve as a comprehensive solution for conducting web application penetration testing. It has become the industry standard tool for hands-on security assessments of web and mobile applications, including those that re… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/5-burpsuite/1-introduction Sat, 16 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity This particular room aims to understand the basics of the Burp Suite web application security testing framework. Our focus will revolve around the following key aspects: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/2-javascript/3-integrating-js-in-html https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/2-javascript/3-integrating-js-in-html Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity This task assumes you have a basic understanding of HTML and its structure. This section will explore how JS can be integrated into HTML. Usually, JS is not used to render content; it works with HTML and CSS to create dynamic and interactive web pages. If you're unfamiliar wit… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/2-javascript/2-javascript-overview https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/2-javascript/2-javascript-overview Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In this task, we’ll use JS to create our first program. JS is an interpreted language, meaning the code is executed directly in the browser without prior compilation. Below is a sample JS code demonstrating key concepts, such as defining a variable, understanding data types, u… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/2-javascript/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/2-javascript/1-introduction Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Variables https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/8-practical-task-making-http-requests https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/8-practical-task-making-http-requests Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity = Make a GET request to /api/users. What is the flag? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/7-security-headers https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/7-security-headers Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity HTTP Security Headers help improve the overall security of the web application by providing mitigations against attacks like Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), clickjacking, and others. We will now dig deeper into the following security headers: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/6-http-response-headers-and-body https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/6-http-response-headers-and-body Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity When a web server responds to an HTTP request, it includes HTTP response headers, which are basically key-value pairs. These headers provide important info about the response and tell the client (usually the browser) how to handle it. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/5-http-response-status-line-and-status-codes https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/5-http-response-status-line-and-status-codes Wed, 13 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity When you interact with a web application, the server sends back an HTTP response to let you know whether your request was successful or something went wrong. These responses include a status code and a short explanation (called the Reason Phrase) that gives insight into how th… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/4-http-request-headers-and-body https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/4-http-request-headers-and-body Wed, 13 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Request Headers allow extra information to be conveyed to the web server about the request. Some common headers are as follows: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/3-http-request-request-line-and-methods https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/3-http-request-request-line-and-methods Wed, 13 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity An HTTP request is what a user sends to a web server to interact with a web application and make something happen. Since these requests are often the first point of contact between the user and the web server, knowing how they work is super important—especially if you’re into … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/2-http-messages https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/2-http-messages Wed, 13 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity HTTP messages are packets of data exchanged between a user (the client) and the web server. These messages are very important for understanding how web applications work because they show how users' requests and the server's responses are communicated. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/1-uniform-resource-locator https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/1-uniform-resource-locator Wed, 13 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a web address that lets you access all kinds of online content—whether it’s a webpage, a video, a photo, or other media. It guides your browser to the right place on the Internet. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/0-web-application-overview https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/web-hacking/1-basics/0-web-application-overview Wed, 13 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Consider an analogy of a web application as a planet. Astronauts travel to the planet to explore its surface, similar to how someone uses a web browser to explore or browse a web application. Although we only see the surface of a planet, a lot is going on under the surface. Yo… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/12-pe-challenge https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/12-pe-challenge Tue, 12 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Commands mentioned previously, such as getsystem and hashdump will provide important leverage and information for privilege escalation and lateral movement. Meterpreter is also a good base you can use to run post-exploitation modules available on the Metasploit framework. Fina… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/11-post-exploitation-with-meterpreter https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/11-post-exploitation-with-meterpreter Tue, 12 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Meterpreter provides you with many useful commands that facilitate the post-exploitation phase. Below are a few examples you will often use. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/10-meterpreter-flavours https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/10-meterpreter-flavours Tue, 12 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity As discussed in the previous Metasploit rooms, linked below, Metasploit payloads can be initially divided into two categories; inline (also called single) and staged. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/9-meterepret https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/9-meterepret Tue, 12 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Meterpreter is a Metasploit payload that supports the penetration testing process with many valuable components. Meterpreter will run on the target system and act as an agent within a command and control architecture. You will interact with the target operating system and file… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/8-msfvenom https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/8-msfvenom Tue, 12 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Msfvenom, which replaced Msfpayload and Msfencode, allows you to generate payloads. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/7-exploitation https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/7-exploitation Mon, 11 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity As the name suggests, Metasploit is an exploitation framework. Exploits are the most populated module category. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/6-vulnerability-scanning https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/6-vulnerability-scanning Mon, 11 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Metasploit allows you to quickly identify some critical vulnerabilities that could be considered as “low hanging fruit”.  The term “low hanging fruit” usually refers to easily identifiable and exploitable vulnerabilities that could potentially allow you to gain a foothold on a… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/5-the-metasploit-database https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/5-the-metasploit-database Mon, 11 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity While it is not required when interacting with a single target on TryHackMe, an actual penetration testing engagement will likely have several targets. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/4-scanning https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/4-scanning Mon, 11 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Metasploit has a number of modules to scan open ports on the target system and network. You can list potential port scanning modules available using the search portscan command. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/1-wireshark https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/1-wireshark Sun, 10 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity npWireshark is an open-source, cross-platform network packet analyser tool capable of sniffing and investigating live traffic and inspecting packet captures (PCAP). It is commonly used as one of the best packet analysis tools. In this room, we will look at the basics of Wiresh… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/3-working-with-modules https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/3-working-with-modules Sun, 10 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You can launch the target machine attached to this room to replicate the examples shown below. Any Metasploit version 5 or 6 will have menus and screens similar to those shown here so you can use the AttackBox or any operating system installed on your local computer. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/2-msfconsole https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/2-msfconsole Sat, 09 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity As previously mentioned, the console will be your main interface to the Metasploit Framework. You can launch it using the msfconsole command on your AttackBox terminal or any system the Metasploit Framework is installed on. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/1-main-comps-of-metasploit https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/1-main-comps-of-metasploit Sat, 09 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity While using the Metasploit Framework, you will primarily interact with the Metasploit console. You can launch it from the AttackBox terminal using the msfconsole command. The console will be your main interface to interact with the different modules of the Metasploit Framework… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/0-msf-intro https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/2-metasploit-basics/0-msf-intro Sat, 09 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Metasploit is the most widely used exploitation framework. Metasploit is a powerful tool that can support all phases of a penetration testing engagement, from information gathering to post-exploitation. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/1-moniker-link-cve-2024-21413/5-remediation https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/1-moniker-link-cve-2024-21413/5-remediation Sat, 09 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Microsoft has included patches to resolve this vulnerability in February’s “patch Tuesday” release. You can see a list of KB articles by Office build here. Updating Office through Windows Update or the Microsoft Update Catalog is strongly recommended. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/1-moniker-link-cve-2024-21413/4-detection https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/1-moniker-link-cve-2024-21413/4-detection Sat, 09 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity A Yara rule has been created by Florian Roth to detect emails containing the file:\\ element in the Moniker Link. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/1-moniker-link-cve-2024-21413/3-exploitation https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/1-moniker-link-cve-2024-21413/3-exploitation Sat, 09 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity For this attack, we will email our victim a Moniker Link similar to the one provided in the previous task. The objective, as the attacker, is to craft an email to the victim with a Moniker Link that bypasses Outlook's "Protected View", where the victim’s client will attempt to… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hashing/8-encoding https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hashing/8-encoding Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Hashing, as already stated, is a process that takes input data and produces a hash value, a fixed-size string of characters, also referred to as digest. This hash value uniquely represents the data, and any change in the data, no matter how small, should lead to a change in th… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hashing/7-hashing-for-integrity-checking https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hashing/7-hashing-for-integrity-checking Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In Task 3, we mentioned that we would focus on two uses of hashing: password storage and data integrity. We have extensively discussed how hashing secures passwords in authentication systems. In this task, we will discuss how we can use hash functions to check the integrity of… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hashing/6-password-cracking https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hashing/6-password-cracking Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We’ve already mentioned rainbow tables as a method to crack hashes that don’t use a salt, but what if there’s a salt involved? https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hashing/5-recognising-password-hashes https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hashing/5-recognising-password-hashes Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity From the cyber defensive security perspective, we covered how to store passwords securely for authentication systems. Let’s tackle this from the offensive security perspective; if we start with a hash, how can we recognize its type, eventually crack it, and recover the origina… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hashing/4-using-hashing-for-secure-password-storage https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hashing/4-using-hashing-for-secure-password-storage Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity This is where hashing comes in. What if, instead of storing the password, you just stored its hash value using a secure hashing function? This process means you never have to store the user’s password, and if your database is leaked, an attacker will have to crack each passwor… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hashing/3-insecure-password-storage-for-authentication https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hashing/3-insecure-password-storage-for-authentication Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Hashing has many uses in Cyber Security. In this room, we will focus on two uses: password storage and data integrity. We refer to password storage when used for authentication. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hashing/2-hash-functions https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hashing/2-hash-functions Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Hash functions are different from encryption. There is no key, and it’s meant to be impossible (or computationally impractical) to go from the output back to the input. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hashing/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hashing/1-introduction Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Consider the scenario where you just downloaded a 6 GB file and want to know whether the copy you downloaded is identical to the original file, bit for bit. How would you do that? Or if a good Samaritan handed you this 6 GB file on a USB memory drive, how can you be sure it is… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/10-ssh-cracking https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/10-ssh-cracking Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Okay, okay, I hear you. There are no more file archives! Fine! Let’s explore one more use of John that comes up semi-frequently in CTF challenges—using John to crack the SSH private key password of idrsa files. Unless configured otherwise, you authenticate your SSH login using… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/9-cracking-a-password-protected-rar-archive https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/9-cracking-a-password-protected-rar-archive Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We can use a similar process to the one we used in the last task to obtain the password for RAR archives. If you aren’t familiar, RAR archives are compressed files created by the WinRAR archive manager. Like Zip files, they compress folders and files. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/8-cracking-password-protected-zip-files https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/8-cracking-password-protected-zip-files Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Yes! You read that right. We can use John to crack the password on password-protected Zip files. Again, we’ll use a separate part of the John suite of tools to convert the Zip file into a format that John will understand, but we’ll use the syntax you’re already familiar with f… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/7-custom-rules https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/7-custom-rules Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity As we explored what John can do in Single Crack Mode, you may have some ideas about some good mangling patterns or what patterns your passwords often use that could be replicated with a particular mangling pattern. The good news is that you can define your rules, which John wi… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/6-single-crack-mode https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/6-single-crack-mode Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity So far, we’ve been using John’s wordlist mode to brute-force simple and not-so-simple hashes. But John also has another mode, called the Single Crack mode. In this mode, John uses only the information provided in the username to try and work out possible passwords heuristicall… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/5-cracking-etc-shadow-hashes https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/5-cracking-etc-shadow-hashes Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The /etc/shadow file is the file on Linux machines where password hashes are stored. It also stores other information, such as the date of last password change and password expiration information. It contains one entry per line for each user or user account of the system. This… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/4-cracking-windows-authentication-hashes https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/4-cracking-windows-authentication-hashes Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Now that we understand the basic syntax and usage of John the Ripper, let’s move on to cracking something a little bit more complicated, something that you may even want to attempt if you’re on an actual Penetration Test or Red Team engagement. Authentication hashes are the ha… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/3-cracking-basic-hashes https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/3-cracking-basic-hashes Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The basic syntax of John the Ripper commands is as follows. We will cover the specific options and modifiers used as we use them. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/2-setting-up-the-system https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/2-setting-up-the-system Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Throughout the tasks of this room, we will be using the following : https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/1-basic-terms https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/4-john-the-ripper/1-basic-terms Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity A hash is a way of taking a piece of data of any length and representing it in another fixed-length form. This process masks the original value of the data. The hash value is obtained by running the original data through a hashing algorithm. Many popular hashing algorithms exi… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/1-moniker-link-cve-2024-21413/2-moniker-link-cve-2024-21413 https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/1-moniker-link-cve-2024-21413/2-moniker-link-cve-2024-21413 Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Outlook can render emails as HTML. You may notice this being used by your favourite newsletters. Additionally, Outlook can parse hyperlinks such as HTTP and HTTPS. However, it can also open URLs specifying applications known as Moniker Links. Normally, Outlook will prompt a se… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/1-moniker-link-cve-2024-21413/1-introduction https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/exploitation-basics/1-moniker-link-cve-2024-21413/1-introduction Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity On February 13th, 2024, Microsoft announced a Microsoft Outlook RCE & credential leak vulnerability with the assigned CVE of CVE-2024-21413 (Moniker Link). Haifei Li of Check Point Research is credited with discovering the vulnerability. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/21-tls https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/21-tls Thu, 07 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity At one point, you would only need a packet-capturing tool to read all the chats, emails, and passwords of the users on your network. It was not uncommon for an attacker to set their network card in promiscuous mode, i.e., to capture all packets, including those not destined to… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/12-pgp-gpg https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/12-pgp-gpg Thu, 07 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy. It’s software that implements encryption for encrypting files, performing digital signing, and more. GnuPG or GPG is an open-source implementation of the OpenPGP standard. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/11-digital-signatures-and-certificates https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/11-digital-signatures-and-certificates Thu, 07 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In the “analogue” world, you are asked to sign a paper now and then. When you visit the bank to open a savings account, you are most likely asked to sign several documents. When you want to create an account at the local library, you will be asked to fill out and sign the appl… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/10-ssh https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/10-ssh Thu, 07 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity If you have used an SSH client before, you would know the confirmation prompt in the terminal output below. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/9-diffie-helman-key-xchange https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/9-diffie-helman-key-xchange Thu, 07 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity One of the challenges of using symmetric encryption is sharing the secret key. Let’s say you want to send a password-protected document to your business partner to discuss confidential business strategies. How would you share the password with them? It would be best if you had… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/8-rsa https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/8-rsa Thu, 07 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity RSA is a public-key encryption algorithm that enables secure data transmission over insecure channels. With an insecure channel, we expect adversaries to eavesdrop on it. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/7-use-of-asymmetric-encryption https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/7-use-of-asymmetric-encryption Thu, 07 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Exchanging keys for symmetric encryption is a widespread use of asymmetric cryptography. Asymmetric encryption is relatively slow compared to symmetric encryption; therefore, we rely on asymmetric encryption to negotiate and agree on symmetric encryption ciphers and keys. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/6-pgp-intro https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/6-pgp-intro Thu, 07 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity - Authentication: You want to be sure you communicate with the right person, not someone else pretending. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/5-basic-maths https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/5-basic-maths Thu, 07 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The building blocks of modern cryptography lie in mathematics. To demonstrate some basic algorithms, we will cover two mathematical operations that are used in various algorithms: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/3-nmap https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/3-nmap Wed, 06 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Let’s start with the first question: who is online? This task aims to find out how to use Nmap to discover the live hosts. Nmap uses various sophisticated ways to discover live hosts. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/3-historical-ciphers https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/3-historical-ciphers Wed, 06 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Cryptography’s history is long and dates back to ancient Egypt in 1900 BCE. However, one of the simplest historical ciphers is the Caesar Cipher from the first century BCE. The idea is simple: shift each letter by a certain number to encrypt the message. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/2-plaintext-to-ciphertext https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/2-plaintext-to-ciphertext Wed, 06 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Let’s start with an illustration before introducing the key terms. We begin with the plaintext that we want to encrypt. The plaintext is the readable data; it can be anything from a simple “hello”, a cat photo, credit card information, or medical health records. From a cryptog… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/1-intro https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/cryptography/1-intro Wed, 06 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Cryptography’s ultimate purpose is to ensure secure communication in the presence of adversaries. The term secure includes confidentiality and integrity of the communicated data. Cryptography can be defined as the practice and study of techniques for secure communication and d… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/25-vpn https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/25-vpn Tue, 05 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Consider a company with offices in different geographical locations. Can this company connect all its offices and sites to the main branch so that any device can access the shared resources as if physically located in the main branch? The answer is yes; furthermore, the most e… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/24-sftp-ftps https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/24-sftp-ftps Tue, 05 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity SFTP stands for SSH File Transfer Protocol and allows secure file transfer. It is part of the SSH protocol suite and shares the same port number, 22. If enabled in the OpenSSH server configuration, you can connect using a command such as sftp username@hostname. Once logged in,… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/23-ssh https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/23-ssh Tue, 05 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity We have used the TELNET protocol in the Networking Concepts room. Although it is very convenient to log in and administer remote systems, it is risky when all the traffic is sent in cleartext. It is easy for anyone monitoring the network traffic to get hold of your login crede… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/22-misc https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/22-misc Tue, 05 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Adding TLS to SMTP, POP3, and IMAP is no different than adding TLS to HTTP. Similar to how HTTP gets an appended S for Secure and becomes HTTPS, SMTP, POP3, and IMAP become SMTPS, POP3S, and IMAPS, respectively. Using these protocols over TLS is no different than using HTTP ov… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/16-http https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/16-http Tue, 05 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity When you fire up your browser, you mainly use HTTP and HTTPS protocols. HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol; the S in HTTPS stands for Secure. This protocol relies on TCP and defines how your web browser communicates with the web servers. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/2-tcpdump https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/hacking-tools/2-tcpdump Tue, 05 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The main challenge when studying networking protocols is that we don’t get a chance to see the protocol “conversations” taking place. All the technical complexities are hidden behind friendly and elegant user interfaces. You access resources on your local network without ever … https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/20-imap https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/20-imap Mon, 04 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity POP3 is enough when working from one device, e.g., your favourite email client on your desktop computer. However, what if you want to check your email from your office desktop computer and from your laptop or smartphone? In this scenario, you need a protocol that allows synchr… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/19-pop3 https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/19-pop3 Mon, 04 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity You’ve received an email and want to download it to your local mail client. The Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) is designed to allow the client to communicate with a mail server and retrieve email messages. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/18-smtp https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/18-smtp Mon, 04 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity As with browsing the web and downloading files, sending email needs its own protocol. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) defines how a mail client talks with a mail server and how a mail server talks with another. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/17-ftp https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/17-ftp Mon, 04 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Unlike HTTP, which is designed to retrieve web pages, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is designed to transfer files. As a result, FTP is very efficient for file transfer, and when all conditions are equal, it can achieve higher speeds than HTTP. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/15-who-is https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/15-who-is Mon, 04 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity In the previous task, we covered how a domain name is resolved into an IP address. However, for this to happen, someone needs to have the authority to set the A, AAAA, and MX records, among other DNS records for the domain. Whoever registers a domain name is granted this power… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/14-nat https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/14-nat Mon, 04 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity NAT allows multiple devices on a private local network to share a single public IP address to access the internet. This helps conserve public IP addresses, which are limited in number under the IPv4 system. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/13-routing https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/13-routing Mon, 04 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Routing protocols help routers determine the best path for data to travel within a network or across the internet. Key routing protocols include: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/12-icmp https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/12-icmp Mon, 04 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity ICMP is primarily used for network diagnostics and troubleshooting. Two common commands that rely on ICMP are: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/11-arp https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/11-arp Mon, 04 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity ARP is a protocol used to map a device’s IP address to its MAC (Media Access Control) address. When a device wants to communicate with another device on the same local network, it needs the MAC address to create a data link layer frame. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/9-telnet https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/9-telnet Sun, 03 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The TELNET (Teletype Network) protocol is a network protocol for remote terminal connection. In simpler words, telnet, a TELNET client, allows you to connect to and communicate with a remote system and issue text commands. Although initially it was used for remote administrati… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/8-encapsulation https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/8-encapsulation Sun, 03 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity Encapsulation is an essential concept as it allows each layer to focus on its intended function. In the image below, we have the following four steps: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/2-osi-model https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/2-osi-model Sun, 03 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity - The OSI mode (or Open Systems Interconnection Model) is an essential model used in networking.  This critical model provides a framework dictating how all networked devices will send, receive and interpret data. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/6-misc-information https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/6-misc-information Sat, 02 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity When a website's traffic starts getting quite large or is running an application that needs to have high availability, one web server might no longer do the job. Load balancers provide two main features, ensuring high traffic websites can handle the load and providing a failov… https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/5-dns-in-detail https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/5-dns-in-detail Fri, 01 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity - Purpose: DNS helps us access websites using names (like tryhackme.com) instead of IP addresses (like 104.26.10.229). https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/4-extending-network https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/4-extending-network Fri, 01 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity - Port forwarding allows devices outside a local network to access a service inside the network. https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/3-packet-frames https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/3-packet-frames Fri, 01 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity - Packets vs Frames: https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/1-lan https://bluenets1.github.io/#/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-101/networking/1-lan Thu, 31 Jul 2025 12:00:00 GMT cybersecurity The main premise of a star topology is that devices are individually connected via a central networking device such as a switch or hub. This topology is the most commonly found today because of its reliability and scalability - despite the cost.