Mission 0x14

🔎 Solution

After connecting to the machine via SSH as alice, the next task was to locate a password hidden inside the passwd file. The mission note made it clear enough:

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# MISSION 0x14 #
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## EN ##
The admin has left the password of the user anna as a comment in the file passwd.

Before diving in, it's important to remember what /etc/passwd actually is. On a Linux system, this file stores all registered users along with various metadata required for authentication and environment setup - such as UID, GID, home directory, and default shell.

Each line in /etc/passwd follows the structure:

username:password:UID:GID:comment:home_directory:default_shell

So the goal was to inspect the file and look for anything unusual. Running a quick grep against the current username revealed something interesting:

alice@venus:~$ cat /etc/passwd | grep "alice"
alice:x:1014:1014:w8NvY27qkpdePox:/pwned/alice:/bin/bash

The comment field wasn't a regular descriptive string - it looked more like an intentionally planted password, very likely belonging to user anna.

With that suspected credential, the next move was to attempt logging in as anna:

ssh anna@venus.hackmyvm.eu -p 5000

The login succeeded. From there, the only thing left was to inspect the home directory and check for the final flag:

anna@venus:~$ cat flagz.txt 
8===5Y3DhT66fa6Da8RpLKG0===D~~

🚩Flag

8===5Y3DhT66fa6Da8RpLKG0===D~~