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THM - Flip

3 min readMar 22, 2025

A writeup for the room Flip on TryHackMe

Hey, do a flip!

Footprinting

The source code of the application is provided and you can see that it is written in Python.

The application is a socket server listening on port 1337 that can be interacted with using tools like netcat.

The only thing that can be noticed is that the application is built around the AES implementation using CBC mode with block size 16.

Whenever we try to log in with fake credentials, we get a valid ciphertext that can be used to reconstruct the relative plaintext.

Next, we are asked to enter a new ciphertext to be used for authentication.

Since we have a known plaintext with AES CBC, the application is vulnerable to bit flipping.

Flag

Bit flipping attack

In the CBC mode of operation, decryption is done by xoring the previous ciphertext block with the current decrypted one.

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Francesco Pastore
Francesco Pastore

Written by Francesco Pastore

An engineering student in Milan and a web developer for an IT company. Write about programming and cybersecurity topics.

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