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Phreaky
HackTheBox
"In the shadowed realm where the Phreaks hold sway"
$ ls tags/ techniques/
pcap_analysisfile_carvingemail_extractionpassword_protected_zip
$ cat /etc/rate-limit
Rate limit reached (20 reads/hour per IP). Showing preview only — full content returns at the next hour roll-over.
Phreaky — HackTheBox
Description
"In the shadowed realm where the Phreaks hold sway"
The challenge provided a download link to a ZIP file containing a PCAP capture.
Analysis
Initial Analysis
Downloaded and extracted the challenge file (password: hackthebox), revealing phreaky.pcap - a network capture file.
PCAP Protocol Analysis
Analyzed the PCAP with tshark to identify protocols:
tshark -r phreaky.pcap -q -z io,phs
Key findings:
- SMTP traffic (337 frames)
- IMF (Internet Message Format) - 15 email messages
- Emails sent from
[email protected]to[email protected] - Subject: "Secure File Transfer"
Email Extraction
Exported email objects from the PCAP:
tshark -r phreaky.pcap -Y "smtp" --export-objects "imf,emails"
Found 15 unique emails (with duplicates totaling 30 files). Each email contained:
- A text body with a password (e.g., "Password: S3W8yzixNoL8")
- A base64-encoded ZIP attachment
Attachment Analysis
Each ZIP file contained a part of a PDF file:
phreaks_plan.pdf.part1throughphreaks_plan.pdf.part15- Each ZIP was password-protected with a unique password from its email
Passwords found:
| Part | Password |
|---|---|
| 1 | S3W8yzixNoL8 |
| 2 | r5Q6YQEcGWEF |
| 3 | TVm9aC1UycxF |
| 4 | jISlbC8145Ox |
| 5 | AdtJYhF4sFgv |
| 6 | j2SRRDraIvUZ |
| 7 | xh161WSXX7tB |
| 8 | yH5vqnkm7Ixa |
| 9 | tJPUTUfceO1P |
| 10 | 2qKlZHZlBPQz |
| 11 | mbkUvLZ1koxu |
| 12 | ZN4yKAYrtf8x |
| 13 | 0eA143t4432M |
| 14 | oea41WCJrWwN |
| 15 | gdOvbPtB0xCK |
Solution
Python Extraction Script
Created a Python script to:
- Parse all .eml files
- Extract passwords from email bodies
- Decode base64 ZIP attachments
- Extract each part using its password
- Combine all parts in order
...
$ grep --similar
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