Meow | HackTheBox Write-up

Introduction

This box introduces us to many basic concepts and tools used in ethical hacking. We explore using commands such as: ping, nmap, telnet, and more. For this box, to capture the flag we need to ultimately login to the telnet service running on the box in order to read the file containing the flag (flag.txt).

Enumeration

To start off, we ping (also known as an ICMP (internet control message protocol) echo test) the target box (computer) in order to make sure it is actually alive:

Since we are receiving back packets from the target computer, we can confirm it is up and running.

Next, we are going to run an nmap (network map) to enumerate for running services and their respective ports on the target machine:

We can see that port 23 is open, running the service telnet. Telnet is an old text-based protocol that allows for remote computer access.

Telnet

Using the telnet command, we can try to login to the target machine:

We are met with a login screen.

After trying various login usernames, we were granted access without a password using login name root.

Using the command ls (list) we can view what contents are in the current directory.

We see the flag.txt file, which is what we are looking for to complete the box. Using the cat (concatenate) command we can view the contents of the file.

As we can see, we have captured the flag for this box.

Various Questions:

What does the acronym VM stand for?
Virtual Machine

What tool do we use to interact with the operating system in order to issue commands via the command line, such as the one to start our VPN connection? It's also known as a console or shell.
terminal

What service do we use to form our VPN connection into HTB labs?
openvpn

What tool do we use to test our connection to the target with an ICMP echo request?
ping

What is the name of the most common tool for finding open ports on a target?
nmap

What service do we identify on port 23/tcp during our scans?
telnet

What username is able to log into the target over telnet with a blank password?
root

Submit root flag
Try it yourself :)