Cyber Countdown: Day 1
Lab of the Day Every day we’re revisiting a standout lab from the past year—highlighting its impact and the skills it helped build, whilst also introducing you to the experts who built it. To get us started, today’s lab is of course Episode 2 of our Community Challenge -Scanning. In this lab we’ll test your scanning and enumeration skills but other than that, you’ll find limited information available to guide you. Lab author BethHolden, Cyber Security Engineer here at Immersive Labs is passionate about offensive cybersecurity and created this challenge as a little Christmas treat. The lab contains a range of tools which may provide multiple ways to solve the challenge, she’s eager to see how well you fare – good luck! As a reminder, we reward the top performing community members in the following categories: 🥇 First to Finish ⏱️ Fastest to Complete 🎯 Most Accurate 💪 Most Persistent 🎁 Spot Prizes In addition, at the end of each month, the lab author will provide a walkthrough to guide you through the lab and share hints, tips and expert advice on how to approach similar labs in the future. We also encourage you to submit your own walkthrough guides to community@immersivelabs.com and we will feature any unique approaches in their own Community Walkthrough Guide. You can read more about Season 1 of the Human Connection Challenge here. To be in with a chance of a prize you have until midnight on Sunday 22nd December 2024 to complete episode 2! To find the lab in the Immersive Labs Platform, Click Exercise > Challenges & Scenarios > The Human Connection Challenge: Season 1 > Scanning 🔔 Don’t miss out – there are 5 more labs to come in this challenge series. Make sure you're following the CHALLENGES Tag to get notified as soon as each one is released. Good Luck!
Labs Live: Maze Challenge
# This was recorded on 19th August 2025. SabrinaKayaci will be guiding you through Advanced CTF Challenge: Improbable Maze, the first challenge in our latest CTF collection. StefanApostol will then walk through Introduction to Active Directory Attacks: Domain Passwords, which will prepare you for one of the upcoming Maze Labs, Blood Maze (yes, it is as sinister as it sounds!) In the first lab, what seems impossible at first turns out to be merely improbable. The maze blocks your path to the goal, but there’s a subtle flaw you can exploit with the right tools. Your task is to look beneath the surface: analyze how your moves are handled behind the scenes and use that insight to make the improbable probable. Can you capture the flag by thinking beyond the obvious? In the third lab, you’ll face another maze. At first glance, this one looks abandoned, with its secrets buried beneath layers of time and access controls. Your task is to break through these forgotten barriers: enumerate users, gain a foothold, and uncover secrets using classic offensive tools. Dig deep, analyze everything, and piece together what the years have obscured. Can you awaken the maze and capture its ancient flag? Improbable Maze is rated difficulty level five, and Blood Maze is rated an eight. As this collection is designed to push your skills, the labs offer minimal guidance, and there are no hints or tips available. Be sure to join the session for expert advice and the opportunity to play along. This is your chance to get a strong start and gain a competitive edge. If you have a license, navigate to Exercise → Challenges & Scenarios → Maze → Advanced CTF Challenge: Improbable Maze to get started.The Maze Challenge
Put your Offensive Security skills to the ultimate test in eight of the most challenging offensive labs ever assembled by the Immersive team - welcome to The Maze! Navigate a series of eight “mazes” of increasing complexity based on real-world-inspired cyber attack scenarios, testing a variety of offensive skills, such as web, infrastructure, Active Directory, scripting, and binary exploitation. Best of all, taking part gives you a fantastic opportunity to win exclusive challenge coins and be recognized in our Cyber Resilience Awards during Cyber Awareness Month! Do you think you have what it takes to escape The Maze? Try it Now: Maze Want to get a head start on the competition? Join the fiendish minds behind The Maze in the Immersive community, Tuesday 19th August, for a Live walkthrough of the first lab in the series “The Improbable Maze” and providing hints and tips that will help you to escape some of the other mazes. Register Now: Labs LiveThe Human Connection Challenge: Season 1 Episode 6 Is Now Live!
Welcome to the sixth instalment of the Human Connection Challenge: Season 1. This lab tests your ability to analyze and exploit Thick Client applications. As this is a challenge lab, you'll find limited information available to guide you. Good luck! 🤞 If you're new to the challenge, we reward the top-performing community members in the following categories with physical and digital prizes, like our all-new challenge coin: 🥇 First to Finish ⏱️ Fastest to Complete 🎯 Most Accurate 💪 Most Persistent 🎁 Spot Prizes When the challenge ends, lab author StefanApostol will provide a walkthrough to guide you through the lab and share hints, tips and expert advice on how to approach this lab, so you can compare notes and learn techniques for the future. You're also very welcome to submit your own walkthrough guides to community@immersivelabs.com because we know that there are multiple methods you take to complete the challenge labs. We'll showcase any unique approaches taken. You can read more about Season 1 of the Human Connection Challenge here. To be in with a chance of a prize you have until midnight on Sunday 20th April to complete episode 6! To find the lab in the Immersive Labs Platform, Click Exercise > Challenges & Scenarios > The Human Connection Challenge: Season 1 > Thick Client 🔔 There are 7 labs within this series so make sure you're following the CHALLENGES Tag to get notified as soon as the final lab is released! Now it's time to take on that challenge! Let us know how you got on in the comments below!🏁 Episode 6 of Season 1 of The Human Connection Challenge is Closed! 🏁
Hey everyone, We hope you had a blast tackling Lab 6 of The Human Connection Challenge: Season 1. With phrases like "tasty", "hardest one yet," and even "clueless" popping up in the discussions, it's no secret that the evil genuis StefanApostol had created quite the brain-bender! It's been fantastic to see the community collaborating and sharing your experiences, thanks to everyone who shared their hints and tips. Out of 274 attempts, a remarkable 14 of you successfully cracked the code - huge congratulations to those who conquered this challenge! Curious to know who the speediest and most persistent were? We'll be announcing the winners in our next monthly newsletter, coming out in May, so keep an eye on your inboxes 🔔 Don't rest on your laurels for too long, though! The next lab will be the SEASON FINALE and will be going live on 5th May. Make sure you're following the CHALLENGES Tag to get notified the moment it drops. You won't want to miss it💻🔐 Study Group Announcement - Offensive Cybersecurity Lab Chosen! 💻🔐
You may have heard that we're launching a Study Group within the community. And for the first time, the votes are in, and we’re diving into Offensive Cybersecurity for our very first Study Group 🖥️💥 This week, we’ll be exploring hands-on tactics in offensive cybersecurity in a safe, controlled environment, and the chosen lab is Hack Your First Web App: Ep.1 – Ozone Energy How to get involved: Dive into the lab: Get started on the lab and challenge yourself to complete it by the end of the week. Join the discussion: Don’t forget to share your experiences, ask questions, and drop any tips or tricks you’ve picked up along the way in this forum discussion. Support each other: This is all about collaboration—whether you’re struggling with a concept or want to share an "aha" moment, jump into the conversation! Remember, we’ll re-vote on Friday for next week’s lab, so stay engaged and help shape where this study group goes. Let’s learn together and level up our skills! Every community member who has access to an Immersive license is welcome to join this study group. Happy hacking! 🔓💻
Modern Encryption: Demonstrate your skills
I am in the final lab of this collection and the step 3 I need to encrypt the file using aes 256 encryption using the following command and similar other commands I am using for setup 4 & 5 however the commands execute succesfully and a encrypted file is generated however a key file is not generated to decrypt the remaining for encrypted file to complete the lab. I need the help to solve this lab and get the badge. step 3- openssl enc -aes-256-cbc -a -pbkdf2 -nosalt -in plaintext_1.txt -out plaintext_1.enc step 4- Encrypt a file using RC4 openssl enc -rc4 -d -pbkdf2 -nosalt -in plaintext_2.txt -out plaintext_2.enc step 5- Encrypt a file using RC4 openssl enc --des-ede3-cbc -d -pbkdf2 -nosalt -in plaintext_3.txt -out plaintext_3.encThe Human Connection Challenge: Season 1 Episode 5 Is Now Live!
Each new challenge lab introduces a new area designed to put you to the test. This month, we're calling for you to show off your Windows skills! If you're new to the challenge, we reward the top-performing community members in the following categories with physical and digital prizes, like our all-new challenge coin: 🥇 First to Finish ⏱️ Fastest to Complete 🎯 Most Accurate 💪 Most Persistent 🎁 Spot Prizes When the challenge ends, lab author StefanApostol will provide a walkthrough to guide you through the lab and share hints, tips and expert advice on how to approach this lab, so you can compare notes and learn techniques for the future. You're also very welcome to submit your own walkthrough guides to community@immersivelabs.com because we know that there are multiple methods you take to complete the challenge labs. We'll showcase any unique approaches taken. You can read more about Season 1 of the Human Connection Challenge here. To be in with a chance of a prize you have until midnight on Sunday 23rd March to complete episode 5! To find the lab in the Immersive Labs Platform, Click Exercise > Challenges & Scenarios > The Human Connection Challenge: Season 1 > Windows 🔔 Don’t miss out – there are 4 more labs to come in this challenge series. Make sure you're following the CHALLENGES Tag to get notified as soon as each one is released. Good Luck! 🤞🏁 Episode 7 of Season 1 of The Human Connection Challenge is Closed! 🏁
Hey everyone, We hope you enjoyed Lab 7 of The Human Connection Challenge: Season 1 our most difficult challenge yet! It's been fantastic to see the community collaborating and sharing your experiences, thanks to everyone who shared their hints, tips and support. 19 of you successfully completed this lab and over 300 of you have been entered into the prize draw to win some fantastic prizes: 🥇 Tickets, Flights & Accommodation to an Immersive Summit in NYC or London 🥈 2 x PlayStation®5 Consoles 🥉 10 x Apple AirPods or JBL Headphones 👕 Much coveted Immersive swag and goodies! We will be drawing names out of the hat later today and will contact the winners directly. As per usual, the lab walkthrough will be shared shortly and we have a special webinar about the lab on Thursday. Join us to hear directly from lab author and evil genius StefanApostol. In the meantime, please drop a comment below and let us know how you got on with this challenge, and what you would like to see from Season 2...
