Shrek

Verified writeups for the Shrek machine of Hack The Box

Shrek

$ tldr Audio steg + elliptic curve crypto → sudo vi → chown wildcard cron

·	·
Operating system	Linux
Difficulty	Hard
Vector	Linux privesc
IP	10.10.10.47
Retirement date	2020-07-22
Skills	Information Leakage Steganography Challenge - Hidden message in the spectrogram of an audio file (Audacity) Cryptography Challenge - Elliptic Curve (py-seccure) Abusing Sudoers Privilege - User Pivoting (Vi) Abusing Cron Job - Chown Wildcard Exploitation [Privilege Escalation]

Writeups

Language	Author	Format	Link
🇪🇸 ES	S4vitar	Vídeo	Open
🇬🇧 EN	0xdf	Texto	Open
🇬🇧 EN	IppSec	Vídeo	Open

Skill resources

Curated documentation for each technique listed in the Skills column above. Sources: HackTricks, GTFOBins, PortSwigger, etc.

Skill	Source	Link
Information Leakage	HackTricks	Open
Steganography (Stego)	HackTricks	Open
Port Forwarding / Pivoting	HackTricks	Open

If you liked this machine, try

• Horizontall — Linux, Easy
• Kotarak — Linux, Hard
• Acute — Windows, Hard
• TimeLapse — Windows, Easy
• Talkative — Linux, Hard

---

Comments & tips

Did the official writeup not work? Found a smarter trick? Share it here — comments live in GitHub Discussions.

Last updated: 2026-06-07