The first step is identifying the attack surface. Since Forest is a Windows machine, we expect to see standard AD services.
Transfer it to the target (using evil-winrm upload):
SeBackupPrivilege allows reading any file on the system, including the NTDS.dit (the AD database).
Search for sebastien and set them as your starting node. Query for BloodHound reveals a clear path: sebastien belongs to the Service Accounts group. Service Accounts is a member of Privileged IT Accounts . Privileged IT Accounts is a member of Account Operators . forest hackthebox walkthrough best
If pre-authentication is disabled, an attacker can request a ticket for a user, receive an encrypted blob, and crack it offline. The Attack
This phase is brilliantly designed because it teaches the "why" behind the exploit. It demonstrates that default AD configurations are often insecure and that a single misconfigured user attribute can lead to a foothold.
echo "10.10.10.161 forest.htb" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts The first step is identifying the attack surface
impacket-secretsdump -ntds ntds.dit -system system.save LOCAL
The presence of WinRM (port 5985) is crucial. If we obtain credentials for a user in the "Remote Management Users" group, we can log in via evil-winrm .
In this walkthrough, we will cover the enumeration of a Domain Controller, exploiting a misconfiguration to gain an initial foothold, performing privilege escalation via ACLs, and finally dumping the domain hashes to capture the root flag. Search for sebastien and set them as your starting node
Account Operators can create new users and add them to groups that are not protected by AdminSDHolder. 1. Create a Malicious User
WinRM is open (port 5985). Connect:
GetNPUsers returns "KDC_ERR_C_PRINCIPAL_UNKNOWN". Fix: Ensure /etc/hosts has forest.htb and htb.local mapped to the IP.