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Official Write-Up for the Lucky Panther CTF TryHackMe Private Room

#tryhackme #ctf #stego #thm

Task 1: Download the Image

Room link

Users can also join this room by going to their My Rooms page and entering luckypantherctf

Start by downloading the provided image file.

Image description

Task 2: Investigate the Image

Question 1: What Did You Find in the Picture?

To get started, you can try using online tools. Such as:aperisolve, stegano ... . But I'll skip this part and move on to the terminal.

Just now let's try commands:

file
strings
exiv2 <file.name>
binwalk -e <file.name>
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And now closer to the point, use the steghide tool to analyze the image:

steghide info luckypanther.jpg
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Output:

"luckypanther.jpg":
format: jpeg
capacity: 28.7 KB
Try to get information about embedded data? (y/n) y
Enter passphrase:
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Since a passphrase is required, we need to find it. Let’s try StegSeek with the rockyou.txt wordlist:

stegseek luckypanther.jpg /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt -
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StegSeek successfully finds the passphrase:

StegSeek 0.6 
[i] Found passphrase: "$pxxxxxxxxxx"
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Next, extract the hidden file using steghide:

steghide extract -sf luckypanther.jpg
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Enter the passphrase "$pxxxxxxxxxx" to extract the embedded file, which is forest.zip.

Answer: forest.zip

Question 2: What is Your Second Find?

Let’s unzip the forest.zip file:

unzip forest.zip
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Output:

Archive:  forest.zip
forest.zip: deepforest.pdf password:
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The forest.zip file is password-protected. To crack it, use fcrackzip:

fcrackzip -u -D -p /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt forest.zip
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After running the command, we find the password:

PASSWORD FOUND!!!!: pw == dexxxxxxxx
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Unzipping with the password dexxxxxxxx reveals the deepforest.pdf file.

Answer: deepforest.pdf

Question 3: What is Hiding in the Deep Forest?

Opening deepforest.pdf requires a password. To crack it, first extract the hash using pdf2john:

/usr/share/john/pdf2john.pl deepforest.pdf > deepforesthash
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Then, use John the Ripper to crack the hash:

john --format=PDF --wordlist=/usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt deepforesthash
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John successfully cracks the password:

good-luck (deepforest.pdf)
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Alternatively, you can use Hashcat. First, edit the hash file by removing deepforest.pdf: from the start, and save it as deepforesthash2.

To crack the hash with Hashcat:

hashcat -m 10500 deepforesthash2 -a 0 /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt
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Hashcat confirms the password is good-luck.

Now, open deepforest.pdf with the password good-luck to reveal the first flag.

Answer: GUZ{U!_U4px3e!_l0h_4e3_va_4ur_Q33c_s0e3$g!_xxxxxxxxx}

Task 3: What is the Flag?

Just a little more deciphering left.

Are you in the Deep Forest?

Question: What is the Flag?

We have a flag example from Task 2:

GUZ{U!_U4px3e!_l0h_4e3_va_4ur_Q33c_s0e3$g!_xxxxxxxxx}
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Using the Cipher Identifier tool at dCode, we identify it as a ROT13 cipher.

Image description

click on ROT-13 Cipher and decrypt srting:

Image description

We can decode it directly using ROT13, or by using CyberChef with the ROT13 function.

Image description

Answer: THM{H!_H4ck3r!_xxx_xxx_xx_xxx_xxxx_xxxxxxx_C0ngr4t$!}

Great! Happy Hacking!

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