Test Your Hacking / Exploiting Skills with SmashTheStack!

Hello Null-Byte community. First off: this my first post here on Null-Byte. Some of you may have already seen me in the comment section, to all others: Hi, I'm the new guy.

Secondly, a standardized text to wash my hands in innocence: I have used the search function with different keywords and couldn't find a similar post to this. If there is one, feel free to name it in the comment section below.

Now let's put a bit of content in this post:

I am working as a programmer at the time and sometimes it occurs that have spare time at work. I don't spend this time dilly-dallying, I always try to improve my self (Yeah I know the Tyler Durden quote to that, an it is one of my favourites, but still). So I found two sites:

1.) Codingame, which has already been presented on Null-Byte. I use it to improve my coding skills, especially in new languages I learn.

2.) io.smashthestack.org - which shall be the topic of the post.

IO SmashTheStack is a level-based wargame, where the player has to exploit a certain vulnerability of a system in every level. You start at level 1 and at successfully exploting a program, you get the password for the next level.

The first levels require you to exploit such things as buffer overflows, Data Types and clear-text strings. I am currently stuck in level 4 (forgive me for that, I am just new to this whole field and it certainly requires even new players to have basic knowledge of hacking and exploiting, understanding C language is a big plus), so I cannot tell you what challenges you will meet on the higher levels (AFAIK, there are currently 33).

So I hope that at least some of you will enjoy it, because I certainly love it.

References :

C Language and Buffer Overflows

Codingame Post by Kitten

CodeWars Post by Psytech140