Network Discovery - Scan-ta Clause (TryHackMe) 🧑‍🎄🎉
As part of our SOC‑mas journey, today’s challenge brings us deep into the fundamentals of network service discovery. While TBFC’s QA environment has been compromised, this task is the perfect opportunity to sharpen our skills with real‑world techniques used by defenders and attackers alike.
This walkthrough builds on TryHackMe’s original storyline without changing it—our goal here is to expand the learning experience, reinforce the key concepts, and provide a clear path through the investigation. From simple port scans to interacting with custom services and DNS queries, this challenge highlights how exposed services can act as hidden entry points during an incident.
With each discovered key and every analyzed port, we not only fight back against HopSec’s EAST‑mas chaos but also strengthen our understanding of how critical service enumeration is during reconnaissance, pentesting, and incident response.
Introduction
The Story
Christmas preparations are delayed - HopSec has breached our QA environment and locked us out! Without it, the TBFC projects can't be tested, and our entire SOC-mas pipeline is frozen. To make things worse, the server is slowly transforming into a twisted EAST-mas node.
Can you uncover HopSec's trail, find a way back into tbfc-devqa01, and restore the server before the bunny's takeover is complete? For this task, you'll need to check every place to hide, every opened port that bunnies left unprotected. Good luck!
Learning Objectives
Learn the basics of network service discovery with Nmap
Learn core network protocols and concepts along the way
Apply your knowledge to find a way back into the server
Discover Network Services
Discovering Exposed Services
Although we lost access to the QA server, at least it's still active, and we know its IP address. That's good news, since now we can counterattack and hopefully find our way back. Ensure you understand basic Networking Concepts like network ports, and let's plan the engagement!
Know your target. In our case, it is the
tbfc-devqa01server with theMACHINE_IPIP address.Scan the IP for open ports, especially common ones like 22 for SSH and 80 for HTTP.
Explore what's behind the open ports, maybe it's a vulnerable web server running on port 80.
Exploit the exposed service, find a way in, and kick out the bad bunnies from the QA server.
Along the practical of today's task you will find three keys.
Keep note of them since you will later need them for the web app.
The format will be KEYNAME:KEY.
The Simplest Port Scan
There are many tools you can use to scan for open ports, from preinstalled Netcat on Linux and PowerShell on Windows, to specialized, powerful tools like Nmap and Naabu. Let's use Nmap for this task and perform a basic scan from the AttackBox or your own VPN-connected attacking machine. Open a new command line terminal and run the following command:
BasicNmapScan
root@attackbox:~# nmap MACHINE_IP
Nmap scan report for MACHINE_IP
Host is up (0.061s latency).
PORT STATE SERVICE
22/tcp open ssh
80/tcp open http
The command scanned the top 1000 most commonly used ports and reported if any services were running there. The only results you received are an opened SSH port for remote machine access and a HTTP port for a website. This means you can now access the server via SSH (if you know the password), or open the website by visiting http://MACHINE_IP from within the AttackBox:
Scanning Whole Range
It seems like the website is defaced by bad bunnies, and we don't know the key to enter the admin panel! But worry not. We scanned just 1000 ports, but there are actually 65535 ports where other services can hide! Now let's add the -p- argument to scan all ports, and --script=banner to see what's likely behind the port:
Specifying Port Range
root@attackbox:~# nmap -p- --script=banner MACHINE_IP
Nmap scan report for MACHINE_IP
Host is up (0.00036s latency).
Not shown: 65531 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
22/tcp open ssh
|_banner: SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_9.6p1 Ubuntu-3ubuntu13.14
80/tcp open http
21212/tcp open trinket-agent
|_banner: 220 (vsFTPd 3.0.5)
25251/tcp open unknown
|_banner: TBFC maintd v0.2\x0AType HELP for commands.
Looks like you found a running FTP server and some custom TBFC application. Even though FTP runs on port 21 by default, it's possible to change the port to any other one, such as 21212. Let's try accessing the FTP in anonymous mode with the ftp command and see if we can find our way in! You can follow the commands from the terminal below:
UsingFTPClient
root@attackbox:~# ftp MACHINE_IP 21212
Connected to 10.10.239.62.
Name (10.10.239.62:root): anonymous
ftp> ls
-rw-r--r-- 1 ftp ftp 13 Oct 22 16:27 tbfc_qa_key1
ftp> get tbfc_qa_key1 -
[GET HIDDEN KEY 1 FROM HERE]
ftp> ! # Will exit the FTP shell
Port Scan Modes
Good job finding the first flag part. There is nothing more we can see on the FTP server, so let's move on to the custom TBFC app on port 25251. Since it is not a well-known service like HTTP or FTP, your web browser or FTP client won't know how to access it. Luckily, you can always use Netcat (nc), a universal tool to interact with network services:
Using Netcat Client
root@attackbox:~# nc -v MACHINE_IP 25251
Connection to 10.10.239.62 25251 port [tcp/*] succeeded!
TBFC maintd v0.2
Type HELP for commands.
HELP # Your input/request
Commands: HELP, STATUS, GET KEY, QUIT # Server response
[RUN THE CORRECT COMMAND TO GET HIDDEN KEY 2]
Once you received the key, press CTRL+C to exit the Netcat client.
TCP and UDP Ports
Congratulations on the second flag! But where to look for the third one? Till now, you have scanned only TCP ports, but there are also 65535 ports for UDP, another transport protocol. And there is a chance HopSec secrets are hiding there, too! You can switch to UDP scan by specifying the -sU flag:
ScanningUDPPorts
root@attackbox:~# nmap -sU MACHINE_IP
PORT STATE SERVICE
53/udp open domain
[...]
After a minute you should see an open port 53 associated with DNS - a protocol that drives the modern web by connecting domains to IPs, and many more! DNS is a complex topic and many secrets can hide there, but let's just ask the DNS server if it knows the key by using dig - a command to perform advanced DNS queries:
QueryingDNSServer
root@attackbox:~# dig @MACHINE_IP TXT key3.tbfc.local +short
[RUN THE CORRECT COMMAND TO GET HIDDEN KEY 3]
On-Host Service Discovery
Now that you know all three keys to the tbfc-devqa01 QA server, it's time to call your TBFC teammates and kick out the bad bunnies. But first, log in to the server's admin panel by visiting http://MACHINE_IP from within the AttackBox and access the secret admin console by submitting the combined keys:
Listing Listening Ports
Once you have access to the console, there is no need to scan the ports, as you can simply ask the OS to list its open ports, also called listening ports. You can do it by running ss -tunlp (or netstat on older systems) inside the Secret Admin Console of the web app. In the output, you may see exactly the same services you scanned before listening on 0.0.0.0, but also some listening on 127.0.0.1 (available only from the host itself):
Listing Listening Ports
tbfcapp@tbfc-devqa01:~$ ss -tunlp
Netid State Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address:Port Peer Address:Port Process
udp UNCONN 0 0 0.0.0.0:53 0.0.0.0:*
udp UNCONN 0 0 10.10.76.132%ens5:68 0.0.0.0:*
tcp LISTEN 0 50 0.0.0.0:25251 0.0.0.0:*
tcp LISTEN 0 32 0.0.0.0:21212 0.0.0.0:*
tcp LISTEN 0 4096 0.0.0.0:22 0.0.0.0:*
tcp LISTEN 0 32 0.0.0.0:53 0.0.0.0:*
tcp LISTEN 0 511 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:*
tcp LISTEN 0 2048 127.0.0.1:8000 0.0.0.0:*
tcp LISTEN 0 151 127.0.0.1:3306 0.0.0.0:*
tcp LISTEN 0 4096 127.0.0.1:7681 0.0.0.0:*
tcp LISTEN 0 4096 [::]:22 [::]:*
With root permissions, you can also view the process column. However, for now, let's focus on the 3306 port, which is the default MySQL database port. Usually databases require a password for remote clients, but allow unauthenticated logins from localhost. Since you are already inside the host, let's see the database content by using the mysql program:
Enumerating MySQL Tables
tbfcapp@tbfc-devqa01:~$ mysql -D tbfcqa01 -e "show tables;"
+--------------------+
| Tables_in_tbfcqa01 |
+--------------------+
| flags |
+--------------------+
tbfcapp@tbfc-devqa01:~$ mysql -D tbfcqa01 -e "select * from flags;"
[GET YOUR FLAG HERE]
Great job on finding the flag! You have exposed all bunnies' secrets and regained full access to the QA server. Now it's time to secure all ports and restore the SOC-mas preparation pipeline. But for now, answer the questions below and finish the task!
Answer the questions below
What evil message do you see on top of the website?
To find the message, just visit the site on the browser and look around just hint the word is close to the site icon
nmap IP_Addressnmap -p- --script=banner IP_Address
This nmap scan shows us the open ports, like
ssh,http,trinket-agent - vsFTPd, and anunknownone. Open ports give us a hint of what we can access. It’s helpful during reconnaissance, especially in penetration testing.What is the first key part found on the FTP server?
ftp is used to upload and download files between a client and a server
ftp IP_Addressftp>
anonymousftp>
lsftp>
get tbfc_qa_key1ftp>
exit
cat tbfc_qa_key1
What is the second key part found in the TBFC app?
nc -v IP_Address 25251HELPGET KEY
What is the third key part found in the DNS records?
nmap -sU IP_Addressdig @IP_Address TXT key3.tbfc.local +short
Next step, we now visit the site and combine the three keys to access the Terninal
echo “Hello World!“pwdls -la
Which port was the MySQL database running on?
ss -tunlp
Finally, what's the flag you found in the database?
mysql -D tbfcqa01 -e “show tables;”mysql -D tbfcqa01 -e “select * from flags;”
If you enjoyed today's room, feel free to check out the Nmap: The Basics room.
By the end of this task, we successfully uncovered all three key parts, accessed the secret admin console, enumerated on‑host services, and retrieved the final flag from the database. More importantly, we saw firsthand how attackers abuse overlooked ports and misconfigurations—and how defenders can detect, investigate, and respond to such activity.
This challenge reinforces why port scanning, service discovery, and protocol awareness remain core skills for cybersecurity professionals. Whether interacting with FTP, probing custom TCP services, or analyzing DNS records, each step mirrored real investigative work performed during incident response.
Now that the QA server has been restored and HopSec’s mischief uncovered, you’re better equipped to approach future SOC‑mas challenges and more advanced reconnaissance tasks. On to the next mission! 🎄🛡️
