I spent the weekend at a red teaming class -- when I returned, I jumped up on Vulnhub and I found a new batch of boxes waiting to be exploited.  Needless to say, it's like winning twice in the same week. 

I'm so appreciative of people who are willing to spend the time building these boxes because it allows others in the community to work on their skills -- for free.  Needless to say, I've downloaded a number of boxes from this recent batch and while perusing the list, I randomly picked Web Developer as my first to attack.  

If this box is any indication of how the rest will go, I will be very pleased because the author tossed in a couple of new avenues that I've yet to see.  While not particularly hard, if you have some knowledge with these avenues, this box still makes you think and jump through some hoops.  

Bottom line, this one was clever and a lot of fun!

Microsoft has given us the ability to report messages as Junk or Phishing to help improve their accuracy.  I would love to customize what they've given us to send messages elsewhere but Microsoft didn't provide us with that option.  

The problem is that not all messages are black & white obvious and users might not be able to determine the legitimacy of a message.  I would love a single click button that would forward suspicious email to our team where we can give it a hard look.  Now thinking about that scenario for a second -- if a user forwards spam, it could get flagged on our end as spam.  

Spoiler alert:  We're going to create such a button.  In the design, we're going to forward the message to a specific address that we can whitelist to prevent the forwarded message from getting trapped on our end.  In addition, we're going to change the subject to one that allows for easy identification.  

I'm a big fan of people who take time out of their day to help others in the community, especially with something as time consuming as building a vulnerable server.  So when I state that I don't really like the capture the flag style boxes, it's nothing against the maker and it's just a personal preference.  I'm sure it's enhancing my critical thinking skills and I should be happy with that but sometimes these challenges frustrate me. 

FristiLeaks is one of those boxes that tested my patience.  My frustration came out at the end when I saw how I was supposed to conquer this box and instead I went for the kernel exploit.  Granted the kernel exploit is the fastest way to root so there's that but the author had intended for it to be more of a game.  

Anyway, in protest: