IRCWare

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

Description

During a routine check on our servers we found this suspicious binary, although when analyzing it we couldn't get it to do anything. We assume it's dead malware, but maybe something interesting can still be extracted from it?

Solution Approach

Core idea: Identify the weakness from source review or fingerprinting first. Iterate with incremental payloads instead of guessing.

Steps

1. First, unzip the .zip file given.

2. Next check the type of file we got.

3. Let's start by strings the binary to see if we can get any interesting clue here.

4. Got some IOC commands.

5. Let's decompil the binary then.

Flag

(no flag captured)

Lessons Learned

1. Identify the weakness from source review or fingerprinting first.
2. Iterate with incremental payloads instead of guessing.
3. Reuse the same pattern in future engagements.