PicoCTF

PicoGym Challenges

PicoCTF is a free computer security game with original educational content built on a capture-the-flag framework created by security and privacy experts at Carnegie Mellon University. The competition has participants reverse engineer, break, hack, decrypt, and think creatively and critically to solve the challenges and capture the flags.

The following are questions that can be found on the new picoGym challenges page. They include solutions for the picoCTF 2019 competition and picoCTF 2020 mini competition.

Overview

Title

Category

Points

Flag

Lets Warm Up

General Skills

50

picoCTF{p}

2Warm

General Skills

50

picoCTF{101010}

Warmed Up

General Skills

50

picoCTF{61}

Bases

General Skills

100

picoCTF{l3arn_th3_r0p35}

First Grep

General Skills

100

picoCTF{grep_is_good_to_find_things_f77e0797}

Strings It

General Skills

100

picoCTF{5tRIng5_1T_d66c7bb7}

What's a Net Cat?

General Skills

100

picoCTF{nEtCat_Mast3ry_d0c64587}

The Numbers

Cryptography

50

picoCTF{THENUMBERSMASON}

Caesar

Cryptography

100

picoCTF{crossingtherubiconvfhsjkou}

13

Cryptography

100

picoCTF{not_too_bad_of_a_problem}

Easy1

Cryptography

100

picoCTF{CRYPTOISFUN}

Insp3ct0r

Web Exploitation

50

picoCTF{tru3_d3t3ct1ve_0r_ju5t_lucky?f10be399}

Dont Use Client Side

Web Exploitation

100

picoCTF{no_clients_plz_7723ce}

Where are the Robots

Web Exploitation

100

picoCTF{ca1cu1at1ng_Mach1n3s_8028f}

Logon

Web Exploitation

100

picoCTF{th3_c0nsp1r4cy_l1v3s_d1c24fef}

Vault Door Training

Reverse Engineering

50

picoCTF{w4rm1ng_Up_w1tH_jAv4_be8d9806f18}

Vault Door 1

Reverse Engineering

100

picoCTF{d35cr4mbl3_tH3_cH4r4cT3r5_75092e}

Glory of the Garden

Forensics

50

picoCTF{more_than_m33ts_the_3y3eBdBd2cc}

So Meta

Forensics

150

picoCTF{s0_m3ta_eb36bf44}

General Skills: Lets Warm Up

Challenge

If I told you a word started with 0x70 in hexadecimal, what would it start with in ASCII?

Solution

This is really easy to do in bash as the command echo has the ability to interpret backslashes, you can also use a tool like xxd to make a hexdump or reverse it with the -r option.

z3r0@disboard:~$ echo -e '\x70'
p
z3r0@disboard:~$ echo '0x70' | xxd -r
p%

It can also be done in python using the 'decode' command and passing in the type argument as 'hex'.

>>> '70'.decode('hex')
p

Flag

picoCTF{p}

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General Skills: 2Warm

Challenge

Can you convert the number 42 (base 10) to binary (base 2)?

Solution

This can be converted by hand but the process can be simplified for any n using bash or python. In bash, you can utilize the bc command tool which takes a string as input to calculate arbitrary precision numbers.

z3r0@disboard:~$ echo "obase=2; 42 | bc"
101010

In python, there is a built-in command called 'bin' that will return a binary string starting with '0b'.

>>> bin(42)[2:]
'101010'

Flag

picoCTF{101010}

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General Skills: Warmed Up

Challenge

What is 0x3D (base 16) in decimal (base 10)?

Solution

Once again, you can use bash's bc function or python to do this conversion.

z3r0@disboard:~$ echo "obase=10; ibase=16; 3D" | bc
61

In the command above, the 'obase' field stands for the output base and the 'ibase' field stands for the input base.

>>> int('3d', 16)
61

Flag

picoCTF{61}

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General Skills: Bases

Challenge

What does this bDNhcm5fdGgzX3IwcDM1 mean? I think it has something to do with bases.

Solution

Using the title as a hint, first thoughts go to a base64 encoded string. To decode it, you can use the base64 bash tool along with the echo command

z3r0@disboard:~$ echo bDNhcm5fdGgzX3IwcDM1 | base64 -d
l3arn_th3_r0p35

It's also possible to do it in python, though an external package 'base64' needs to be imported to utilize the base64 decoder.

>>> import base64
>>> base64.b64decode('bDNhcm5fdGgzX3IwcDM1')
'l3arn_th3_r0p35'

Flag

picoCTF{l3arn_th3_r0p35}

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General Skills: First Grep

Challenge

Can you find the flag in this file? This would be really tedious to look through manually, something tells me there is a better way.

Solution

Download linked file and rename it to something more accurate i.e. first-grep.txt

This challenge requires using the bash tool grep which is a utility that searches any given input file and selects lines that match one or more patterns. The general command for grep looks like the following: grep [pattern] [file ...]

z3r0@disboard:~$ grep pico first-grep.txt
picoCTF{grep_is_good_to_find_things_f77e0797}

Flag

picoCTF{grep_is_good_to_find_things_f77e0797}

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General Skills: Strings It

Challenge

Can you find the flag in file without running it?

Solution

Download linked file > called 'strings'

This challenge requires using the bash tool strings which is a utility that displays printable strings in a file. For this one, run the tool on the 'strings' file and then grep for the flag.

z3r0@disboard:~$ strings strings | grep pico
picoCTF{5tRIng5_1T_d66c7bb7}

Flag

picoCTF{5tRIng5_1T_d66c7bb7}

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General Skills: Whats a Net Cat

Challenge

Using netcat (nc) is going to be pretty important. Can you connect to jupiter.challenges.picoctf.org at port 25103 to get the flag?

Solution

This challenge is as simple as using the netcat tool to connect to the listener at the host jupiter.challenges.picoctf.org on port 25103. To actually run the netcat program, the general format is as follows: nc [hostname] [port]

z3r0@disboard:~$ nc -v jupiter.challenges.picoctf.org 25103
Connection to jupiter.challenges.picoctf.org port 25103 [tcp/*] succeeded!
You're on your way to becoming the net cat master
picoCTF{nEtCat_Mast3ry_d0c64587}

Flag

picoCTF{nEtCat_Mast3ry_d0c64587}

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Cryptography: The Numbers

Challenge

The numbers... what do they mean? (The flag is in the format PICOCTF{})

Solution

String of numbers > 16 9 3 15 3 20 6 { 20 8 5 14 21 13 2 5 18 19 13 1 19 15 14 }

The numbers correspond with the order of the alphabet i.e. 1=A, 2=B, 3=C, etc.

>>> nums = '16 9 3 15 3 20 6 { 20 8 5 14 21 13 2 5 18 19 13 1 19 15 14 }'.split()
>>> flag = ''.join(chr(int(x)+64) if x.isnumeric() else x for x in nums)
>>> flag 
PICOCTF{THENUMBERSMASON}

Flag

picoCTF{THENUMBERSMASON}

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Cryptography: Caesar

Challenge

Decrypt this message.

Solution

The downloaded message looks like the following:

picoCTF{ynkooejcpdanqxeykjrbdofgkq}

Since the title says 'Caesar', it's implied that this is a Caesar cipher. There are many available ways to decrypt a caesar message by hand or online such as at the website CyberChef. Using CyberChef, select the ROT13 (another name for Caesar cipher) recipe and paste the encoded part of the message into the 'Input' section.

A simple python script can be used to achieve the same goal and output all the possibilities using the following script:

#!/usr/bin/python3
import sys
message = input('Enter the string to be decrypted: ')
for key in range(26):
    result = ''
    for c in message:
        if c.isupper(): result += chr((ord(c) + key - 65) % 26 + 65)
        elif c.islower(): result += chr((ord(c) + key - 97) % 26 + 97)
        else: result += c 
    print(f'Using shift {key}: {result}')

Running this code will produce the following:

z3r0@disboard:~$ python3 caesar.py
Enter the string to be decrypted: ynkooejcpdanqxeykjrbdofgkq
Using shift 0: ynkooejcpdanqxeykjrbdofgkq
...
Using shift 3: bqnrrhmfsgdqtahbnmuegrijnt
Using shift 4: crossingtherubiconvfhsjkou
Using shift 5: dspttjohuifsvcjdpowgitklpv
...
Using shift 26: ynkooejcpdanqxeykjrbdofgkq

Flag

picoCTF{crossingtherubiconvfhsjkou}

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Cryptography: 13

Challenge

Cryptography can be easy, do you know what ROT13 is? cvpbPGS{abg_gbb_onq_bs_n_ceboyrz}

Solution

This challenge is basically an easier version of the Caesar challenge. Since ROT13 uses a standard key of 13, you can simplify the problem even more. The bash tool trace can be used to make a static transformation like ROT13.

z3r0@disboard:~$ echo cvpbPGS{abg_gbb_onq_bs_n_ceboyrz} | tr 'A-Za-z' 'N-ZA-Mn-za-m'
picoCTF{not_too_bad_of_a_problem}

What's happening here is that the trace command is mapping the original alphabet to a new alphabet that starts with 'n' and ends with 'm' wrapping around from 'z' to 'a'. When are the substitutions are completed, it outputs the transformation to the console.

Flag

picoCTF{not_too_bad_of_a_problem}

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Cryptography: Easy1

Challenge

The one time pad can be cryptographically secure, but not when you know the key. Can you solve this? We've given you the encrypted flag, key, and a table to help UFJKXQZQUNB with the key of SOLVECRYPTO. Can you use this table to solve it?.

Solution

Below is the table that is given in the question.

    A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 
   +----------------------------------------------------
A | A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
B | B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A
C | C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B
D | D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C
E | E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D
F | F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E
G | G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F
H | H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G
I | I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H
J | J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I
K | K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J
L | L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K
M | M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L
N | N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M
O | O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N
P | P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O
Q | Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P
R | R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q
S | S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R
T | T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S
U | U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T
V | V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U
W | W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V
X | X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W
Y | Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X
Z | Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y

This table is commonly used in the Vigenere method. The 'Vigenere' cipher employs a form of polyalphabetic substitution and a key to encrypt phrases. Using the key SOLVECRYPTO, we can decode the encrypted message UFJKXQZQUNB by finding the intersection of the respective letters. If we reached the end of the key, it would repeat at the beginning until the full message is decoded. In this question, both strings are 11 characters making it a one-to-one relationship. Decoding letter by letter, the decrypted message is CRYPTOISFUN.

Another simple way to do this is to use an online [Vigenere Decoder](https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/#recipe=Vigen%C3%A8re_Decode('')) and provide both the key and message.

Flag

picoCTF{CRYPTOISFUN}

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Web Exploitation: Insp3ct0r

Challenge

Kishor Balan tipped us off that the following code may need inspection: https://jupiter.challenges.picoctf.org/problem/44924/ (link) or http://jupiter.challenges.picoctf.org:44924

Solution

Navigating to the given link, you're greeted with a simple html page that says 'Inspect Me'. On Chrome, you can open the inspector by either using the shortcut 'Option+Command+J' or by right clicking and then clicking the 'Inspect' option. Opening the inspector shows the following:

The first part of the flag is given in the HTML file > picoCTF{tru3_d3

Navigating to the 'Sources' tab, you can view the js and css to get the next part of the flags:

  • mycss.css > t3ct1ve_0r_ju5t

  • myjs.js > _lucky?f10be399}

Putting it all together makes picoCTF{tru3_d3t3ct1ve_0r_ju5t_lucky?f10be399}

Flag

picoCTF{tru3_d3t3ct1ve_0r_ju5t_lucky?f10be399}

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Web Exploitation: Dont Use Client Side

Challenge

Can you break into this super secure portal? https://jupiter.challenges.picoctf.org/problem/29835/ (link) or http://jupiter.challenges.picoctf.org:29835

Solution

On entry to the portal, there is a single input field that takes a password - first thing first is to check the inspector for any interesting information.

Opening the inspector, there's a verify function that receives the password string provided and compares it to pieces of the flag that are out of order - now all you need to do it put it back together. Putting the 8 parts together gives us the flag > picoCTF{no_clients_plz_7723ce}.

Enter the flag as the password and if you receive an alert that says 'Password Verified' then you're good to go!

Flag

picoCTF{no_clients_plz_7723ce}

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Web Exploitation: Where are the Robots

Challenge

Can you find the robots? https://jupiter.challenges.picoctf.org/problem/60915/ (link) or http://jupiter.challenges.picoctf.org:60915

Solution

The title of the challenge asks 'where are the robots' implying that you might want to look at the robots.txt file on the website. A robots.txt file is a text file that is used to instruct web robots or web crawlers which parts of a website to not visit. This text file is part of the robots exclusion protocol (REP), a group of standards that regulate how robots crawl the web.

To view the robots.txt file, go to the following > https://jupiter.challenges.picoctf.org/problem/60915/robots.txt

User-agent: *
Disallow: /8028f.html

The owner doesn't want us to go to the 8028f.html page, so that's exactly what you need to do. Enter the following url to get the flag > https://jupiter.challenges.picoctf.org/problem/60915/8028f.html

Flag

picoCTF{ca1cu1at1ng_Mach1n3s_8028f}

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Web Exploitation: Logon

Challenge

The factory is hiding things from all of its users. Can you login as logon and find what they've been looking at? https://jupiter.challenges.picoctf.org/problem/13594/ (link) or http://jupiter.challenges.picoctf.org:13594

Solution

Navigating to https://jupiter.challenges.picoctf.org/problem/13594/ shows a 'Factory Login' form that requires a username and password. Just clicking the 'Sign In' button with empty input will redirect you to the /flag page where it says in big letters 'No flag for you'.

Looking at the source files doesn't really make anything stand out, but there are multiple cookies being stored on the webpage. Viewing the cookies on the webpage or the Application tab, you can find four cookies: 1. admin: False 2. password: '' 3. session: '' 4. ussername: ''

The admin cookie with the value 'False' especially stands out. The next step is then to try to figure out how to change that value to 'True' to see if you can bypass the authentication. To change the cookie's value, do the following:

  • Go to inspector

  • Click on the 'Application' tab

  • Find the 'Cookies' option under the Storage section of the left navbar

  • Click on the cookie item for the current website

  • Double click on the value for the cookie 'admin'

  • Change to 'True'

Changing the value and refreshing the page then reveals the flag!

Flag

picoCTF{th3_c0nsp1r4cy_l1v3s_d1c24fef}

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Reverse Engineering: Vault Door Training

Challenge

Your mission is to enter Dr. Evil's laboratory and retrieve the blueprints for his Doomsday Project. The laboratory is protected by a series of locked vault doors. Each door is controlled by a computer and requires a password to open. Unfortunately, our undercover agents have not been able to obtain the secret passwords for the vault doors, but one of our junior agents obtained the source code for each vault's computer! You will need to read the source code for each level to figure out what the password is for that vault door. As a warmup, we have created a replica vault in our training facility. The source code for the training vault is here: VaultDoorTraining.java

Solution

The java file has the following function:

public boolean checkPassword(String password) {
    return password.equals("w4rm1ng_Up_w1tH_jAv4_be8d9806f18");
}

When the program takes the users input, it strips out the 'picoCTF{' and '}' sections, so the password for the vault would be picoCTF{w4rm1ng_Up_w1tH_jAv4_be8d9806f18}.

On macOS, you can test it by doing the following: 1. javac VaultDoorTraining.java 2. java VaultDoorTraining

z3r0@disboard:~$ java VaultDoorTraining
Enter vault password: picoCTF{w4rm1ng_Up_w1tH_jAv4_be8d9806f18}
Access granted.

Flag

picoCTF{w4rm1ng_Up_w1tH_jAv4_be8d9806f18}

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Reverse Engineering: Vault Door 1

Challenge

This vault uses some complicated arrays! I hope you can make sense of it, special agent. The source code for this vault is here: VaultDoor1.java

Solution

Similar to the training challenge, this one has you examing java code to retrieve a password. The java file has another vulnerable checker function that leaves the password easily decipherable. The function is as follows:

public boolean checkPassword(String password) {
    return password.length() == 32 &&
           password.charAt(0)  == 'd' &&
           password.charAt(29) == '9' &&
           password.charAt(4)  == 'r' &&
           password.charAt(2)  == '5' &&
           password.charAt(23) == 'r' &&
           password.charAt(3)  == 'c' &&
           password.charAt(17) == '4' &&
           password.charAt(1)  == '3' &&
           password.charAt(7)  == 'b' &&
           password.charAt(10) == '_' &&
           password.charAt(5)  == '4' &&
           password.charAt(9)  == '3' &&
           password.charAt(11) == 't' &&
           password.charAt(15) == 'c' &&
           password.charAt(8)  == 'l' &&
           password.charAt(12) == 'H' &&
           password.charAt(20) == 'c' &&
           password.charAt(14) == '_' &&
           password.charAt(6)  == 'm' &&
           password.charAt(24) == '5' &&
           password.charAt(18) == 'r' &&
           password.charAt(13) == '3' &&
           password.charAt(19) == '4' &&
           password.charAt(21) == 'T' &&
           password.charAt(16) == 'H' &&
           password.charAt(27) == '5' &&
           password.charAt(30) == '2' &&
           password.charAt(25) == '_' &&
           password.charAt(22) == '3' &&
           password.charAt(28) == '0' &&
           password.charAt(26) == '7' &&
           password.charAt(31) == 'e';
}

Instead of deciphering it by hand which is very doable yet tedious, you can also write some code to do it for you:

>>> import re
>>> file = with open('VaultDoor1.java', 'r').read()
>>> matches = re.findall(r'\d+\)\s+==\s+\'.', file)
>>> matches = [(int(m.split(')')[0]),m.split('\'')[1]) for m in matches]
>>> answer = ''.join(x[1] for x in sorted(matches))
>>> answer
'd35cr4mbl3_tH3_cH4r4cT3r5_75092e'

Although you don't need to completely understand this script to do the problem, the explanation is as follows: First, the re library is imported so that searching (findall function) can be done on regex to get specific phrases back - that is the index of the character in the password along with the character at that index. Second, change the returned phrases into simple tuples that can be sorted based on index. Lastly, join the characters of the sorted list back into an answer.

Note: The pattern used in the re.findall() function is \d+)\s+==\s+\'. which can be really confusing at first glance. Look at the following to understand.

  • \d+ looks for a digit that is at least one length, this is the index

  • \s+ looks for a sequence of spaces that is at least one length

  • == looks for the literal string '=='

  • . looks for any character, that is the character in the password

Flag

picoCTF{d35cr4mbl3_tH3_cH4r4cT3r5_75092e}

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Forensics: Glory of the Garden

Challenge

This garden contains more than it seems.

Solution

This problem can be solved in multiple ways, two I'll demonstrate use the strings command and the hexdump command.

z3r0@disboard:~$ strings garden.jpg | grep pico
Here is a flag "picoCTF{more_than_m33ts_the_3y3eBdBd2cc}"

The strings command finds printable strings in an object while the grep command searches for strings with the pattern 'pico', the '|' character is a pipe and gives the ouput of the first command to the input of the second command.

z3r0@disboard:~$ hexdump -C garden.jpg
...
00230550  a2 bb bd ac 96 87 98 e4  d3 b2 e8 7f ff d9 48 65  |..............He|
00230560  72 65 20 69 73 20 61 20  66 6c 61 67 20 22 70 69  |re is a flag "pi|
00230570  63 6f 43 54 46 7b 6d 6f  72 65 5f 74 68 61 6e 5f  |coCTF{more_than_|
00230580  6d 33 33 74 73 5f 74 68  65 5f 33 79 33 65 42 64  |m33ts_the_3y3eBd|
00230590  42 64 32 63 63 7d 22 0a                           |Bd2cc}".|
...

You can also view the file as a hexdump with the hexdump command which is used to filter and display files in a human readable specified format.

Flag

picoCTF{more_than_m33ts_the_3y3eBdBd2cc}

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Forensics: So Meta

Challenge

Find the flag in this picture.

Solution

This name of this problem hints at looking at metadata. In images, metadata is a set of information describing information about rights and administration of an image. It allows information to be embedded into an images data to be understood by both software and human users.

This challenge can be completed using both command line tools or online tools which view the embedded data in a file. The first method is using the tool exiftool which is a platform-independent perl library that allows for modifying meta information in files.

z3r0@disboard:~$ exiftool pico_img.png
...
Artist: picoCTF{s0_m3ta_eb36bf44}
...

There are also a multitude of online sources for viewing exif data or metadata such as Jeffrey's Image Metadata Viewer or Online Exif Viewer

Flag

picoCTF{s0_m3ta_eb36bf44}

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Sample: Sample

Challenge

A

Solution

B

Flag

picoCTF{C}

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File Type References

File Reference: Sample File

Image Reference:

Image Reference 2: Image 2

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