Community Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 10 - Legal Hacker Training

Welcome to the 10th Community Byte session for coding in Python and completing the challenges presented to us by HackThisSite. These sessions are created to bring our community together, to learn from each other, and grow together. Everyone is welcome, from novice programmers to aspiring hackers.

HackThisSite is a free, legal, and safe practice ground for aspiring hackers wanting to test their knowledge on something real. We have full permission to exploit their servers, and we even get point rewards for it. 

Python is an easy-to-learn and fun programming language. It was made with readability and simplicity in mind. This keeps things speedy and simple, which helps novice programmers grasp the concepts and ideas pertaining to programming more easily.

This week is the official end to the basic missions. Our mission is a little different this time and will teach us how to exploit unique web interfaces and configurations.

Our Job

Our job is to exploit this final mission's unique and puzzling directory structure to find where a password file is located. In order to hack this, knowing how apache is configured will help you immensely. This will help you jump obstacles you may face when pen-testing a client's network implemented by a more-clever admin.

Prerequisites

• An IRC client, like XChat
• An account on HackThisSite
• Will to learn basic Unix commands and directory structure
• Gobby, a collaborative code editor (programmers)
• A friendly disposition toward other coders and community members

How Does This Work?

If you're new to IRC, go here to learn how to set it up and use it. I will walk everyone through the mission and give you all of the resources and hints you need to solve it via chat. If none of our users are able to solve the mission, I will walk you through how to complete it and make sure that you learn why the exploit works.

Sol Gates is in charge of community coding (Mondays and Wednesdays), and I am in charge of HTS missions (Fridays).

When Does It Start?

Programming

Every Monday and Wednesday at 5:00 p.m. PST. If you need to convert the time from your time zone, go to the Time Zone Converter.

HackThisSite Missions

Every Friday at 5:00 p.m. PST. If you need to convert the time from your time zone, go to the Time Zone Converter.

PLEASE, arrive on time. You will be left out if you do not arrive on time.

Project Goals

Here are some of my hopes for the community for this week's project:

• Get more people in IRC
• Get more people to learn how to program
• Inspire people to learn on their own time out of free will
• Learn about apache and how to manipulate web scripts
• Get another user to solve the mission on their own

Follow and Chat with Null Byte!

• Twitter
• Google+
• IRC chat

Interested in becoming a moderator? Then, simply ask or post in the forum! Tell me if you are interested and I will keep a close eye on your contributions. Your work will not go unnoticed.