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A detailed personal review of the first edition of 'Serious Cryptography: A Practical Introduction to Modern Encryption' by Jean-Philippe Aumasson (No Starch Press, 2017), aimed at non-cryptographer engineers. The reviewer highlights the book's chronological structure from basic concepts through symmetric and asymmetric crypto to post-quantum cryptography, praising its accessible AES walkthrough, MAC vs HMAC distinctions, elliptic curve explanations, and 'How things can go wrong' sections that tie real implementation pitfalls to actual vulnerabilities — useful reference material for vulnerability researchers and pentesters needing solid crypto fundamentals.
A researcher found that the Linux kernel audit subsystem's syscall classes (used to implement auditd's -p r/w/x/a filesystem watch rules) were missing three relatively new syscalls: fchmodat2, getxattrat, and listxattrat. Because these syscalls weren't hooked into the audit_change_attr/read classes, calling them instead of their older counterparts (fchmodat, getxattr, listxattr) let an attacker change file permissions or read extended attributes (e.g., file capabilities, SELinux labels) without triggering any SYSCALL audit alert, enabling stealthy privilege changes and reconnaissance. The gaps were assigned CVE-2025-71239 and CVE-2026-23241, fixed in kernel v7.0 and backported to LTS branches 5.10 through 6.19.
A pentest writeup explaining why remote logons with a shared local administrator account (e.g. from a gold image) fail against tools like psexec/smbexec/WinRM due to UAC's LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy registry key, and how attackers can still succeed either by flipping that key, abusing the RID 500 Administrator account (governed by the separate FilterAdministratorToken key, which is unfiltered by default), or by using protocols not subject to UAC token filtering such as SSH and RDP. The author demonstrates the failure and bypass end-to-end using nxc (NetExec) and Impacket against a Windows 11 target from Kali Linux, and notes LAPS as an effective mitigation for RID 500 abuse.
A personal review of Hack The Box's Certified Defensive Security Analyst (CDSA) certification, an entry-level SOC analyst / incident responder credential under HTB's SOC Analyst Job-Role Path. The author details the 15-module course covering SIEM/SOC fundamentals, network analysis, Active Directory attack & defense, and ELK/Splunk labs, critiques several technical errors in the material, and describes the 7-day practical exam involving two incidents with 20 flags and a mandatory incident report.
SplunkActive DirectoryVPN
Learning, Blue Team & Detection· 2025-12-18T19:24:41+00:00
A step-by-step method for harvesting Configuration Manager (SCCM/MECM) credentials by pulling DPAPI-encrypted secret policy blobs (Network Access Accounts, task sequences, collection variables) via WMI or the local CIM repository, then exfiltrating DPAPI master keys and LSA SYSTEM/SECURITY/SAM hives for fully offline decryption with Impacket's dpapi and secretsdump modules. The approach avoids running known SCCM-abuse tools like SharpDPAPI on-target, reducing signature-based detection while still noting which steps (registry hive backup, DPAPI folder copy, WMI queries) a SOC could realistically catch.
Researcher writeup on CVE-2024-58250, a privilege-escalation flaw in the passprompt plugin of ppp (pppd) before 2.5.2. The plugin uses seteuid()/setegid() instead of permanently dropping privileges, so an attacker who controls the promptprog path passed via `pppd plugin passprompt.so promptprog <path>` can execute code that calls setuid(0)/setgid(0) to regain root on the setuid-root pppd binary. The plugin was removed entirely in the fix rather than patched, and the post includes the full coordinated-disclosure timeline with Debian, Gentoo and Fedora maintainers.
A practical guide to building an auditd-based Linux intrusion detection ruleset covering reconnaissance (tcpdump/wireshark/nmap install and execution), privilege escalation (setuid/setgid syscalls, sudoers and /etc/passwd modification, process injection via ptrace and process_vm_writev), container escape via host filesystem remounting, lateral movement (xfreerdp), persistence (SSH authorized_keys, cron, systemd units, udev rules), and detection evasion via /dev/shm. Each rule is accompanied by working C PoCs and ausearch log output to validate detection, plus discussion of auditd's limitations (no path globbing, kernel syscalls only, incomplete file-change detection). Based on the author's incident response and pentesting experience, the rules and full ruleset are published on a companion GitHub repo.
Writeup of CVE-2024-50306, a vulnerability in Apache Traffic Server (versions 9.0.0-9.2.5 and 10.0.0-10.0.1) where the code fails to check the return value of initgroups() when dropping privileges after startup. If the call fails, the process believes it has dropped supplementary group memberships when it has not, potentially leaving it in a privileged group and enabling privilege escalation. Fixed in ATS 9.2.6/10.0.2 by aborting execution on failure.
Explains a subtle Linux privilege-dropping bug: calling setuid() before setgid() in a SUID/SGID-root binary leaves the saved set-group-ID privileged, letting a later setgid(0) call silently regain root group privileges due to POSIX semantics. The author provides compiled C PoC programs (drop_bad.c / drop_good.c) showing the wrong order failing to fully drop privileges versus the correct order (setgid then setuid) properly relinquishing them, and notes this becomes exploitable for privilege escalation when combined with a code-execution bug later in the program.
Researcher writeup on CVE-2023-47480, where the Pure Data (Pd) visual programming language failed to check return values of set*id() family functions (e.g. setuid()), which could allow the process to silently continue running with elevated privileges if the privilege-drop call failed. Maintainers (fixed by Umläute) patched it in Nov 2023 to abort execution on setuid() failure; the author notes this is the same bug class as their earlier CVE-2023-40303 in GNU inetutils. Impact is rated moderate since triggering setuid() failure is hard and Pd is not widely deployed.
A pentesting-focused writeup explaining how Windows Explorer restrictions NoDrives, NoViewOnDrive, and NoNetConnectDisconnect are configured via registry keys under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer, and demonstrating multiple practical bypasses (explicit path typing, autocomplete, Run box, Microsoft Edge, cmd.exe/PowerShell, loopback network drive mapping). The author notes these are purely visual restrictions enforced by explorer.exe and are trivially circumvented by any non-Explorer GUI or CLI program, making them insufficient as a security control in kiosk or restricted-desktop environments.
Disclosure writeup for CVE-2023-40303, found by the author, describing how GNU inetutils fails to check return values of set*id() family calls (setuid/setgid/etc.) across several of its binaries, including the ftpd, rcp, rlogin, rsh, rshd, and uucpd utilities. Because privilege-dropping calls are not verified, failure conditions can leave a process running with unintended elevated privileges, enabling local or in some server-daemon cases remote privilege escalation; the fix landed in the inetutils master branch ahead of a future release.
A deep-dive on why SUID/SGID binaries that fail to check the return value of set*id() syscalls (setuid, setgid, etc.) can retain elevated privileges, explaining the historical RLIMIT_NPROC/EAGAIN failure path introduced in Linux 2.6 and mitigated in Linux 3.1 via the PF_NPROC_EXCEEDED flag. Includes a C proof-of-concept demonstrating the (now largely closed) attack, detection guidance using Clang's scan-build and a regex for auditing source, and a list of historical CVEs (Xorg, opielogin, ax25-tools, lighttpd, Super, dmcrypt-get-device) caused by this bug class.
Writeup by the researcher who reported CVE-2023-38336, a command injection vulnerability in Netkit's rcp implementation (Debian's rsh-client package). The bug is in susystem() in rcp/rcp.c, which passes filename arguments unsanitized to `sh -c`, letting an attacker who controls a copied filename execute arbitrary commands (demonstrated via `ltrace` with a filename like `";whoami"`); the binary is SUID root but drops privileges via setuid() before executing the shell, so the flaw grants command execution as the invoking user rather than root escalation. No patch exists since the project has no upstream maintainer, and the author recommends migrating from RSH to SSH.
Details CVE-2023-36631, a missing access-control flaw in Malwarebytes' Binisoft Windows Firewall Control (wfc.exe/wfcs.exe) that lets any unprivileged local user export, import, or reset Windows Defender Firewall rules without authentication, fully bypassing firewall protections. The author walks through PoC steps for the export/import/reset actions and documents Malwarebytes' HackerOne disclosure, which was initially closed as 'informative' before a CVE was ultimately assigned. It also references a related 2022 CVE-2022-25150 in the same product's Tools tab that allowed local privilege escalation.
A red-team/OSINT writeup detailing how EXIF, XMP, and IPTC metadata embedded in website-hosted images can leak names, email addresses, phone numbers, postal addresses, GPS coordinates, and software/platform info useful for reconnaissance, phishing, and social engineering. It catalogs specific metadata field names (e.g. XMP:CreatorWorkEmail, EXIF:Artist, XMP:HistorySoftwareAgent) and demonstrates extraction using ExifTool with a real example from a news site image. The author also released webimginfo, a Python script built on BeautifulSoup4 and PyExifTool that scrapes all <img> tags from a URL and extracts these metadata fields automatically.
A practical walkthrough showing how a dangling DNS CNAME (subdomain takeover) combined with the default 'relaxed' DMARC alignment mode (aspf=r/adkim=r) lets an attacker send phishing emails that pass SPF and DMARC for the victim's organizational domain, using a self-owned mail server behind Microsoft 365. The author also demonstrates a partial DKIM trick — signing with a domain other than the spoofed sender to make emails look more legitimate — and shows the resulting mail landing in an Outlook inbox with dmarc=pass. It recommends setting aspf=s/adkim=s (strict alignment) and cleaning up unused DNS records as mitigations.
A blue-team writeup arguing that broad scan detection at the Internet perimeter is low-value noise, and that scan detection is most valuable inside the network perimeter after initial compromise. It then catalogs specific network signatures Nmap leaves in DNS, FTP, HTTP, RDP, SIP, SMB, SSH, and SMTP probes (e.g. the NSE User-Agent, mstshash=nmap RDP cookie, SSH-x.x-NmapNSE client string, IEUser@ FTP password) that can be used to build reliable detection rules.
A hands-on research post that walks through using Windows `assoc`/`ftype` to enumerate file-extension-to-program associations and identify which extensions (.com, .pif, .scr, .bat/.cmd, .vbs/.js, .jar, .chm via hh.exe) execute directly or indirectly on double-click, useful for crafting phishing payloads that evade mail defenses. It includes working PoCs (a .NET binary renamed to .com/.pif/.scr, a VBS script, a Java JAR, and a malicious CHM built with hh.exe per LOLBas), plus credential-theft-relevant extensions like .scf and browser-opening extensions (.html/.svg/.mhtml) for phishing pages, ending with allow-list-based mitigation advice.
Describes abusing the built-in Windows doskey command to define macros/aliases that hide the real executable (e.g. powershell.exe, or a chained download+ProcDump LSASS dump) from command-line-based detection. By defining macros on an attacker machine, exporting them with `doskey /m`, and importing them on the target via `doskey /macrofile=`, the sensitive command never appears on the target's command line, only the short alias does. The author notes this bypasses shallow command-line logging but not lower-level hooks, and suggests defenders monitor/alert on doskey usage since it's rarely used in modern environments.
WindowsPowerShell
Offensive Security, Blue Team & Detection· 2022-10-22T09:23:03+00:00
A personal review of Zero-point Security's Red Team Ops II course, which prepares students for the Certified Red Team Lead (CRTL) certification focused on advanced red team operations, C2 tradecraft, and evasion techniques. The post likely covers course structure, lab content, exam experience, and recommendations for prospective students.
A former eCIR holder reviews INE/eLearnSecurity's eCTHPv2 (Certified Threat Hunting Professional) certification, breaking down its three modules (intro to threat hunting, network hunting, endpoint hunting) and the practical labs covering YARA rule writing, Redline and Volatility memory analysis, Zeek/Rita and Netminer network analysis, and SIEM (Splunk/ELK) log hunting. It also details the 48-hour hands-on exam format and notes recent course updates covering AMSI bypass, Cobalt Strike execute-assembly, and reflective DLL loading detection, while flagging weak lab infrastructure (laggy RDP, slow Splunk labs) and thin network-hunting coverage relative to the endpoint module.
VolatilityYARASplunk+3
eLearnSecurityINESlavi Parpulev
Learning, Blue Team & Detection· 2022-07-10T07:57:19+00:00
A practitioner's review of "Penetration Testing Azure for Ethical Hackers" (Davide Okeyode & Karl Fosaaen, Packt, 2021), walking through its chapter-by-chapter Azure attack methodology: recon of Azure services/vulnerabilities, escalating from Reader to Contributor (IaaS/PaaS) to Owner/Azure AD privileged roles, then persistence in the tenant. The author also shares real troubleshooting notes for the book's hands-on labs, including VM region-allocation workarounds and a fix for a broken Chapter 7 lab script requiring manual global administrator role assignment.
The author discovered two vulnerabilities in cifs-utils, the Linux userland tools for the SMB/CIFS filesystem implementation, which resulted in the release of cifs-utils version 6.15 with fixes. The post is a short summary pointing to a fuller technical writeup on Improsec's blog detailing the bugs.
A personal review of Zero-point Security's Red Team Ops (CRTO) course by Daniel "Rastamouse" Duggan, detailing the course structure, 40-hour Guacamole-based AD lab environment, and the 48-hour CTF-style exam requiring 6 of 8 flags to pass. The reviewer covers techniques taught (kerberoasting, unconstrained delegation abuse, credential dumping, DPAPI), heavy use of CobaltStrike, and the value of the course's "opsec" tips drawn from real red team field experience.
Researcher discloses two CVEs found in Synametrics' SynaMan remote file manager (versions 5.0 and below, partially fixed in 5.1) while escalating privileges on a CTF box. CVE-2022-26250 is a local privilege escalation via weak folder/service permissions letting any authenticated user overwrite the SynaMan.exe binary run as LocalSystem to gain SYSTEM on reboot; CVE-2022-26251 is a web UI RCE where an authenticated admin can create arbitrary read/write shares, upload a malicious binary, and configure a "trigger" to execute it as SYSTEM. The post includes a full disclosure timeline showing the vendor's repeated ineffective patches.
Short researcher post announcing two vulnerabilities the author found in SonicWall SMA 100's Mobile Access web interface, assigned CVE-2021-20049 and CVE-2021-20050 and covered by SonicWall advisories SNWLID-2021-0030 and SNWLID-2021-0031. The post itself is minimal and links out to a fuller responsible-disclosure writeup for technical details.
The author dissects PHP's open_basedir directive by reading php-src's php_check_open_basedir enforcement code, and finds two functions — bindtextdomain() and opcache_invalidate() — that fail to call the guard, allowing an attacker to use them as file-existence oracles outside the restricted directory tree (tested on PHP 8.0.7, reported to maintainers 2021-07-12). It also documents PHP maintainers' longstanding position that "open_basedir bypasses are no security issues," and notes the PHP manual was subsequently updated to caution that open_basedir is only an extra safety net and must not be relied upon for security.
A personal review of the eLearnSecurity Certified Incident Responder (eCIR) course, assessing its coverage of network traffic analysis, Suricata/Zeek/Snort rule writing, Windows/Linux post-exploitation, and SOC/SIEM analysis using Splunk and ELK labs. The author, an experienced IR practitioner, finds the course a solid but shallow introduction — outdated tool versions, weak Linux TTP coverage, unrealistic "baseline" guidance — and describes the practical 48-hour incident-response exam as the most realistic blue-team exam they've encountered.
SuricataZeekSnort+4
eLearnSecurityINEeCIR+2
Learning, Blue Team & Detection· 2021-08-08T17:30:38+00:00
The author examines Chrome's pre-89 defense that blocks outbound requests to http/https URLs containing both '<' and newline characters, a mitigation against HTML dangling-markup/XSS exfiltration. He shows the restriction only applied to http/https and demonstrates bypassing it by exfiltrating HTML content via a dangling `<meta http-equiv="refresh">` tag pointed at an `ftp://` URL, captured with a netcat FTP listener. The bug was reported to Chromium, which responded by dropping FTP and Gopher scheme support in Chrome 89, killing the bypass.
A practical walkthrough of memory forensics on a macOS (Mountain Lion 10.8) RAM dump using Volatility's mac_ plugins, covering OS version fingerprinting via string grep, obtaining/building a matching Volatility profile, listing and dumping processes (mac_pslist, mac_psaux), extracting cached files (mac_list_files, mac_dump_file), recovering bash history (mac_bash), and parsing Safari web history from plist and Cache.db SQLite artifacts. Useful as a concrete reference for analysts lacking documentation on macOS-specific Volatility workflows, with a follow-up post promised for Keychain/Evernote analysis.
bencteux.frwriteup