How I discovered a hidden user thanks to server responses ?
1 min read
Summary
The writer is sharing their first experience of web hacking and the lessons learnt from it.
They describe a lab challenge hosted on Portswighter, which required them to identify a hidden user by probing the server’s reaction to different inputs.
The writer realized that careful observation of the server responses and comparing different inputs was key to figuring out the valid username for the hidden user.
They applied a brute-force password guessing strategy to access the hidden user’s account, finally succeding apllying a semantic analysis approach combined with a semantic web search abut the registered username.
They concluded that authentication might seem a simple security mechanism, but elegant and efficient enumeration logic can easily bypass it.
The objective of the lab was to encourage participants to think critically, and the writer lists the key takeaways they extrapolated from it.
These include the need to: carefully observe server responses; compare different inputs and the consequences; and make informed assumptions based on the gathered information.
They emphasize that these lessons can be applied to other contexts, such as CTF, bug bounty hunting, and Pentesting.