HTB Tactics Walkthrough: Windows SMB Box Compromised via Blank Admin Password

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A Hack The Box (HTB) challenge named 'Tactics' presented a Windows machine accessible over a network. Nmap scanning revealed open ports 135, 139, and 445, confirming the target was running the SMB protocol. The attacker used the Impacket tool 'impacket-psexec' to attempt remote shell access over SMB. Surprisingly, the Administrator account was found to have no password set, allowing immediate authentication without any credential cracking. The challenge flag was then retrieved directly from the Administrator's Desktop directory.

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ProgrammingHacker News ·

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

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