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Bandit Level 9-10@overthewire.org

Description

The password for the next level is stored in the file data.txt in one of the few human-readable strings, preceded by several "=" characters.

Current level credentials

Key Value
Server-name: bandit.labs.overthewire.org
Port: 2220
User: bandit9
Password: EN632PlfYiZbn3PhVK3XOGSlNInNE00t

Current level login

Log in 

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sshpass -p EN632PlfYiZbn3PhVK3XOGSlNInNE00t ssh -p 2220 bandit9@bandit.labs.overthewire.org
Note: You might need to install sshpass before using it. The ssh command can also be used on its own. If so, copy-paste the password when requested.

Hints And Solution

Hint(s)

The data looks messed up when displayed with cat. Determine the file's data type. There is a command for that.

A command exists to extract human-readable strings from a binary file.

Because the output isn't that large, you can examine it in this case. But what if the output was significantly longer? How would you filter the output to show only the lines you require? According to the description, the password is preceded by several = characters. That could be an option for a filter.

Use pipes |. Use grep to filter the output.

Solution 
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bandit8@bandit:~$ ls -al  
total 56  
drwxr-xr-x  2 root    root     4096 May  7  2020 .  
drwxr-xr-x 41 root    root     4096 May  7  2020 ..  
-rw-r--r--  1 root    root      220 May 15  2017 .bash_logout  
-rw-r--r--  1 root    root     3526 May 15  2017 .bashrc  
-rw-r-----  1 bandit9 bandit8 33033 May  7  2020 data.txt  
-rw-r--r--  1 root    root      675 May 15  2017 .profile  

bandit9@bandit:~$ cat data.txt  # (1)   
�L�lω;��ßOܛ��ǤX��NdT$��x7��@D@�o��+D��B��M֢�Z/,_���w���#�5���  
                                                           Ў�e�&�-��Ϣ�6Q8��J�%fa��  
�np�6l  
|c���WW&8��f���

bandit9@bandit:~$ file data.txt   # (2)  
data.txt: data

bandit9@bandit:~$ strings data.txt    # (3) 
...
...
GhG$  
========== the*2i4  
DUJmU
...
...

bandit9@bandit:~$ strings data.txt | grep ===  # (4)  
========== the*2i4  
========== password  
Z)========== is  
&========== truKLdjsbJ5g7yyJ2X2R0o3a5HQJFuLk # (5)
  1. the output from cat is unreadable
  2. the data.txt file has the data type data
  3. we can extract some human-readable strings with the command strings
  4. using grep, we can further filter the output to find the password.
  5. the password for the next level

ls -al shows that the file data.txt is in the home directory. When we use the command cat to display the file's content, we get characters we can't read. It is a (binary) data file, as can be seen if we use the command file to determine the file type. With the command strings, we may extract human-readable strings from binary files. If we take into consideration the level description ("preceded by several = characters") and pipe the output from strings to grep with the search string, for instance,===, we get some readable strings, and the password is in the last line.

**Additional information: ** How do you know the password is on the last line? There are two indicators. If you read the readable strings from first to last, it says "the password is xxxxxxxx." The password's length serves as the second indicator. All passwords up until this point have been 32 characters long. This password is also. The command wc -c can be used to determine the length of a string. echo -n abcdefghijklmnoprstuvwxyz1234567 | wc -c, for instance.

Resources

Resources

Bandit-level9@overthewire
file @linux.die.net
strings @linux.die.net
wc @linux.die.net
grep @linux.die.net

Comments

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