This is a boot2root VM and is a continuation of the Basic Pentesting series. This series is designed to help newcomers to penetration testing develop pentesting skills and have fun exploring part of the offensive side of security.
VirtualBox is the recommended platform for this challenge (though it should also work with VMware -- however, I haven’t tested that).
This VM is a moderate step up in difficulty from the first entry in this series. If you’ve solved the first entry and have tried a few other beginner-oriented challenges, this VM should be a good next step. Once again, this challenge contains multiple initial exploitation vectors and privilege escalation vulnerabilities.
Your goal is to remotely attack the VM, gain root privileges, and read the flag located at /root/flag.txt. Once you’ve finished, try to find other vectors you might have missed! If you’d like to send me a link to your writeup, enjoyed the VM or have questions or feedback, feel free to contact me at: [email protected]
If you finished the VM, please also consider posting a writeup! Writeups help you internalize what you worked on and help anyone else who might be struggling or wants to see someone else’s process. There were lots of wonderful writeups for Basic Pentesting: 1, and I look forward to reading the writeups for this challenge.
